IC-NRLF 


$B 


777 


• 


THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 
AS  DEVELOPED  BY  PEIRCE,  JAMES, 
AND  DEWEY 

DEN    TON       L.       GEYER 


} 


THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AS  DEVELOPED 
BY  PEIRCE,  JAMES,  AND  DEWEY 


BY 


DENTON  LORING  GEYER 
f/ 

B.A.  University  of  Wisconsin,  1910 
M.A.  University  of  Wisconsin,  1911 


THESIS 

Submitted  in  Partial  Fulfillment  of  the  Requirements  for  the 

Degree  of 

DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
IN  PHILOSOPHY 


THE  GP.ADUAvrE 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
1914 


CONTENTS 

PACE 

INTRODUCTION    3 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  PRAGMATIC  DOCTRINE     AS     ORIGINALLY     PRO- 
POSED BY  PEIRCE  5 

CHAPTER  II. 
THE  INTERPRETATION   GIVEN   TO   PRAGMATISM    BY 

JAMES    ..< i/ 

JAMES'S  EXPOSITION  OF  PEIRCE 17 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  PRAGMATIC  DOCTRINE 

THROUGH  THE  EARLIER  WRITINGS  OF  JAMES 2O 

THE  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  IN  TRAGMATISM'  AND  THE 

MEANING  OF  TRUTH' 26 

The  Ambiguity  of  'Satisfaction' 26 

The  Relation  of  Truth  to  Utility 29 

The  Relation  of  Satisfaction  to  Agreement  and 

Consistency  32 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE  PRAGMATIC  DOCTRINE. Ap$£T?EORTH  BY  DEWEY  35 

"THE  EXPERIMENTAL, THEORY.  OF*  KNOWLEDGE" 35 

CONTRAST  BET'WEEN'  JA'MES  -A^D  -BEWEY 38 

CHAPTER  IV. 

SUMMARY    AND    CONCLUSION 41 

MWLIOGRAPHY   .  44 


THE    PRAGMATIC    THEORY    OF    TRUT» 

AS  DEVELOPED  BY  PEIRCE  JAMES, 

AND  DEWEY. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

This  thesis  attempts  to  trace  the  growth  of  the  pragmatic  doctrine 
of  truth  through  the  works  of  its  three  most  famous  advocates  in 
America. 

An  examination  of  Peirce's  initial  statement  of  pragmatism  is  fol- 
lowed by  a  discussion  of  his  objections  to  the  meaning  put  upon  his 
doctrine  by  his  would-be  disciples,  and  his  resort,  in  order  to  save 
himself  from  these  'perversions',  to  a  renaming  of  his  theory.  Some 
evident  contradictions  in  his  different  principles  are  pointed  out. 

The  changing  position  of  William  James  is  then  followed  through 
magazine  articles  and  books  appearing  successively  during  a  period 
of  about  thirty  years.  One  finds  here  a  gradually  but  continually 
widening  divergence  from  the  rationalistic  theories,  which  culminates 
finally  in  the  much-quoted  extreme  statements  of  the  book  'Pragmatism'. 
The  few  subsequently  published  references  to  truth  seem  to  consist 
largely  of  defenses  or  retractions  of  the  tenets  there  set  forth.  As 
has  been  so  often  said,  William  James  was  too  sympathetic  toward  the 
doctrines  of  other  men  to  maintain  a  consistent  doctrine  of  his  own. 
His  best  work,  like  that  of  the  -higher  literary  type  to  which  he  ap- 
proached, was  to  transcribe  and  interpret  the  feelings  of  other  men. 
His  genius  lay  in  the  clearness  with  which  he  could  translate  these 
ideas  and  the  lucid  fashion  in  which  he  could  cut  to  the  heart  of 
ambiguities  in  them.  With  the  highest  and  most  sincere  admiration  for 
the  spirit  of  James'  labors  in  philosophy  and  psychology,  the  writer  is 
unable  to  find  there  permanent  contributions  to  the  solution  of  the 
particular  problem  which  we  have  before  us  here,  the  problem  of 
truth.  In  his  splendid  protest  against  all  static  theories,  he  seems  to 
have  accepted  pragmatism  for  what  it  was  noj:  rather  than  for  what  it 
was.  It  was  not  a  cut-and-dried  system  leaving  no  room  for  individual- 
ity, and  that  this  was  one  of  his  strongest  reasons  for  accepting  it  is 
shown  by  his  asking  again  and  again:  "If  this  (pragmatism)  is  not 
truth,  what  is?"  He  was  attempting  to  find  a  theory — almost  any 
theory,  one  thinks  sometimes — which  would  serve  as  an  alternative  to 
the  older  doctrines  so  incompatible  with  his  temperament. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  frequent  protests  made  by  Peirce 
against  the  turn  given  his  ideas  by  his  followers  are  always  directed 
against  the  work  of  James  and  Schiller,  and  never,  so  far  as  I  have 

3 

s 

340930 


THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

been  able  to  ascertain,  against  that  of  Dewey.  It  therefore  seems 
worth  while  to  undertake  a  direct  comparison  between  the  views  of 
Peirce  and  Dewey.  This  comparison,  then,  occupies  the  latter  part  of 
the  thesis,  with  the  result,  it  may  be  said  at  once,  that  Dewey's  work 
is  found  to  be  very  closely  related  to  the  original  formulation  of  prag- 
matism as  made  by  Peirce. 

The  excellent  historical  sketches  of  pragmatism  which  have  ap- 
peared during  the  last  five  years1  have  been  somewhat  broader  in  scope 
than  the  present  treatise,  for  they  have  usually  described  the  dvelopment 
of  all  the  pragmatic  doctrines  in  the  mass  while  the  emphasis  here  is 
placed  on  the  intensive  treatment  of  a  single  doctrine,  and  this  doctrine 
is  followed,  moreover,  through  a  limited  number  of  its  expounders. 
Further,  almost  all  such  sketches  are  taken  up  for  the  most  part  in 
showing  how  pragmatism  grew  out  of  the  older  doctrines  or  in  con- 
trasting it  with  various  alternative  theories,  while  the  thing  attempted 
here  is,  again,  a  careful  comparison  of  the  views  of  three  thinkers 
within  the  School  itself — writh  of  course  the  writer's  own  reaction  to 
these  views.  It  has  thus  seemed  best  to  undertake  "no  (necessar  ••'!;/ 
fragmentary)  treatment  of  truth  as  'intuition'  or  'coherence'  or  'cor- 
respondence' or  the  rest. 

"^v.-  General  criticism  of  the  pragmatic  theory  of  truth,  as  is  evident 

to  anyone  who  has  followed  the  controversy,  has  been  principally 
directed  against  the  more  'radical'  statements  of  James  and  Schiller. 
Whether  this  is  merely  because  these  champions  of  the  theory  are  more 
extreme,  or  whether  they  are  really  more  prone  to  errors  in  their 
reasoning,  we  need  not  determine  here.  But  it  is  worth  pointing  out 
that,  on  the  other  hand,  if  Peirce  and  Dewey  were  to  be  taken  as  the 
truer  representatives  of  pragmatism  a  large  part  of  the  flood  of  recent 
criticism  would  be  irrelevant.  This  is  by  no  means  to  say  that  the 
work  of  Peirce  and  Dewey  is  above  criticism  ;  it  is  merely  to  call  attention 
to  the  fact  that  most  of  the  criticism  of  pragmatism  is  directed 
against  principles  which  these  two  men  do  not  happen  to  hold.  An 
understanding  of  the  doctrine  in  its  more  conservative  forms,  however, 
is  certainly  on  the  increase,  and  we  are  seldom  nowadays  burdened  with 
refutations  of  such  alleged  pragmatisms  as  that  anything  is  true  which 
it  is  pleasant  to  believe  or  that  any  theory  of  procedure  is  true  which 
happens  to  turn  out  well. 


1See  for  example  an  article  by  Alfred  Lloyd  on  "Conformity,  Consistency,  aid 
Truth"  in  the  Journal  of  Philosophy  for  May  22,  1913;  also  Boodin's  Truth  and  Reality, 
Caldwell's  Pragmatism  and  Idealism,  De  Laguna's  Dogmatism  and  Evolution,  Hurra . 's 
Pragmatism,  Moore's  Pragmatism  and  Its  Critics,  and  others. 


;HAPTER  i. 

rMATIC  DOCTRINE  AS  ORIGINALLY  PROP< 
BY  PEIRCK. 

Pragmatism  has  been  described  as  an  attitude  of  mind,  as  a  method 
f   investigation,   and  as  a  theory   of   truth.     The  attitude   is   that   of 
oking  forward  to  outcomes  rather  than  back  to  origins.     The 
is  the  use  of  actual  or  possible  outcomes  of  our  ideas  to  determine  these 
ideas'  real  meaning.    The  theory  of  truth  defines  the  truth  of  our 
in  terms  of  the  outcomes  of  these  beliefs. 

Pragmatism  as  a  principle  of  method,  like  the  Mendelian  laws  of 
heredity,  lay  for  decades  in  oblivion.  It  was  brought  to  light  and  to 
the  world's  notice  in  1898  by  William  James,  who  by  his  wonderful 
literary  style  immediately  gave  it  the  widest  currency.  The  doctrine 
was  originally  proposed  in  1878  by  C.  S.  Peirce  in  a  paper  for,  the 
Popular  Science  Monthly  entitled  "How  To  Make  Our  Ideas  Clear." 
This  article  was  the  second  of  six  on  the  general  topic,  "Illustrations 
of  the  Logic  of  Science."  The  other  articles  of  the  series  were  re- 
spectively called  "The  Fixation  of  Belief,"  "The  Doctrine  of  Chances," 
"The  Probability  of  Induction,"  "The  Order  of  Nature,"  and  "Induc- 
tion, Deduction,  and  Hypothesis." 

In  the  famous  discussion  of  How  To  Make  Our  Ideas  Clear, 
Peirce  pointed  out  that  by  a  clear  idea  is  meant,  according  to  the  logicians, 
one  which -will 'be  recognized  wherever  it  is  met  with,  so  that  no  other 
will  be  mistaken  for  it.  But  since  to  do  this  without  exception  is  im- 
possible to  human  beings,  and  since  to  have  such  acquaintance  with  the 
idea  as  to  have  lost  all  hesitancy  in  recognizing  it  in  ordinary  cases 
amounts  only  to  a  subjective  feeling  of  mastery  which  may  be  entirely 
mistaken,  they  supplement  the  idea  of  'clearness'  with  that  of  'distinct- 
ness'. A  distinct  idea  is  defined  as  one  that  contains  nothing  which  is 
not  clear.  By  the  contents  of  an  idea  logicians  understand  whatever  is 
contained  in  its  definition,  so  that  an  idea  is  distinctly  apprehended, 
according  to  them,  when  we  can  give  a  precise  definition  of  it,  in  abstract 
terms.  Here  the  professional  logicians  leave  the  subject,  but  it  is  easy 
to  show  that  the  doctrine  that  familiar  use  and  abstract  distinctness  make 
the  perfection  of  apprehension,  "has  its  only  true  place  in  philosophies 
which  have  long  been  extinct",  and  it  is  now  time  to  formulate  a  method 
of  attaining  "a  more  perfect  clearness  of  thought  such  as  we  see  and 
admire  in  the  thinkers  of  our  own  time". 

The  action  of  thought  is  excited  by  the  irritation  of  a  doubt,  and 
peases  when  belief  is  attained;  so  that  the  production  of  belief  is  the 
sole  function  of  thought.  As  thought  appeases  the  irritation  of  a  doubt, 

5 


6  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

which  is  the  motive  for  thinking,  it  relaxes  and  comes  to  rest  for  a 
moment  when  belief  is  reached.  But  belief  is  a  rule  for  action,  and 
its  application  requires  further  thought  and  further  doubt,  so  that  at 
the  same  time  that  it  is  a  stopping  place  it  is  also  a  new  starting  place 
for  thought.  .The  final  upshot  of  thinking  is  the  exercise  of  volition. 

'The  essence  of  belief  is  the  establishment  of  a  habit,  and  different 
beliefs  are  distinguished  by  the  different  modes  of  action  to  which  they 
give  rise.  If  beliefs  do  not  differ  in  this  respect,  if  they  appease  the 
same  doubt  by  producing  the  same  rule  of  action,  then  no  more  differ- 
ences in  the  manner  of  consciousness  of  them  can  make  them  different 
beliefs,  any  more  than  playing  a  tune  in  different  keys  is  playing  a 
different  tune." 

Imaginary  distinctions  are  made  very  frequently,  it  is  true,  between 
beliefs  which  differ  only  in  their  mode  of  expression.  Such  false  dis- 
tinctions do  as  much  harm  as  the  confusion  of  beliefs  really  different. 
"One  singular  deception  of  this  sort,  which  often  occurs,  is  to  mistake 
the  sensation  produced  by  our  own  unclearness  of  thought  for  a  char- 
acter of  the  object  we  are  thinking.  Instead  of  perceiving  that  the 
obscurity  is  purely  subjective,  we  fancy  that  we  contemplate  a  quality 
of  the  object  which  is  essentially  mysterious ;  and  if  our  conception  be 
afterwards  presented  to  us  in  a  clear  form  we  do  not  recognize  it  as  the 
same,  owing  to  the  absence  of  the  feeling  of  unintelligibility An- 
other such  deception  is  to  mistake  a  mere  difference  in  the  grammatical 
construction  ol  two  words  for  a  distinction  between  the  ideas  they 

express From  all  these  sophisms  we  shall  be  perfectly  safe  so  long 

yas  we  reflect  that  the  whole  function  of  thought  is  to  produce  habits 
ofjaction  ;  and  that  whatever  is  connected  with  a  thought,  but  irrelevant 
to  its  purpose,  is  an  accretion  to  it,  but  no  part  of  it". 

"To  develop  a   meaning   we   have,   therefore,   simply   to   determine 
hat  habits  it  produces,  for  what  a  thing  means  is  simply  what  habits 
it  involves.     Xo\v  the  identity  of  a  habit  depends  on  how  it  might  lead 
us  to  act,  not  merely  under  such  circumstances  as  are  likely  to  arise, 

but  under  such  as  might  possibly  occur,  no  matter  how  improbable 

Thus  we  come  down  to  what  is  tangible  and  practical  as  the  root  of 
every  real  distinction  of  thought,  no  matter  how  subtle  it  may  be;  and 
there  is  no  distinction  so  line  as  to  consist  in  anything  but  a  possible 
difference  in  practice". 

As  an  example,  consider  the  doctrine  of  transsubstantiation.  Are 
the  elements  of  the  sacrament  flesh  and  blood ''only  in  a  tropical  sense' 
or  are  they  literally  just  that?  Now  "we  have  no  conception  of  wine 
except  what  may  enter  into  a  belief  either,  (i)  that  this,  that,  or  the 
other  is  wine,  or  (2)  that  wine  possesses  certain  properties.  Such  be- 
liefs are  nothing  but  self-notifications  that  we  should,  upon  occasion, 


THE  PRAGMATISM  OF  PEIRCE  7 

act  in  regard  to  such  things  as  we  believe  to  be  wine  according  to  the 
qualities  which  we  believe  wine  to  possess.  The  occasion  of  sucrFaction 
would  be  some  sensible  perception,  the  motive  of  it  to  produce  some 
sensible  result.  Thus  our  action  has  exclusive  reference  to  what  affects 
our  senses,  our  habit  has  the  same  bearing  as  our  action,  our  belief  the 
same  as  our  habit,  our  conception  the  same  as  our  belief ;  and  we  can 
consequently  mean  nothing  by  wine  but  what  has  certain  effects,  direct 
or  indirect,  upon  the  senses ;  and  to  talk  of  something  as  having  all 
the  sensible  characters  of  wine,  yet  being  in  reality  blood,  is  senseless 

jargon Our  idea  of  anything  is  our  idea  of  its  sensible  effects ;  and' 

if  we  fancy  that  we  have  any  other,  we  deceive  ourselves,  and  mistake 
a  mere  sensation  accompanying  the  thought  for  a  part  of  the  thought 
itself". 

"It  appears,  then,  that  the  rule  for  attaining clearness  of  appre- 
hension is  as  follows:  Consider  what  effects, (which  might  conceivably 
have  practical  beariinjs^wc  conceive  the  object  of  our  conception  to 
have.  Then,  our  conception  of  these  effects  is  the  whole  of  our  con- 
ception of  the  object".  (Italics  mine). 

An  application  of  this  method  to  a  conception  which  particularly 
concerns  logic  occupies  the  last  section  of  the  article, — a  use  of  the 
method  to  make  clear  our  conception  of  "reality".  Considering  clear- 
ness in  the  sense  of  familiarity,  no  idea  could  be  clearer  than  this,  for 
everyone  uses  it  with  perfect  confidence.  Clearness  in  the  sense  of 
definition  is  only  slightly  more  difficult, — "we  may  define  the  real  as 
that  whose  characters  are  independent  of  what  anybody  may  think 
them  to  be".  'But  however  satisfactory  this  is  as  a  definition,  it  does 
not  by  any  means  make  our  idea  of  reality  perfectly  clear.  "Here, 
then,  let  us  apply  our  rules.  According  to  them,jrealitv,|  like  every  other 
quality,  consists  in  the  peculiar  sensible  effects  which  things  partaking 
of  it  produce.  The  only  effect  which  real  things  have  is  to  cause  belief, 
for  all  the  sensations  which  they  excite  emerge  into  consciousness, in 
the  form  of  beliefs.  The  question  therefore  is,  how  is  true  belief  (or 
belief  in  the  real)  distinguished  from  false  belief  (belief  in  fiction)", 
Briefly  this  may  be  answered  by  saying  that  the  true  belief  is  the  one 
which  will  be  arrived  at  after  a  complete  examination  of  all  the  evidence. 
"That  opinion  which  is  fated  to  be  ultimately  agreed  to  by  all  who 
investigate,  is  what  we  mean  by  the  truth,  and  the  object  represented 
in  this  opinion  is  the  real."  (Note:  "Fate  means  merely  that  which 
is  sure  to  come  true,  and  can  nohow  be  avoided".)  The  real  thus 
depends  indeed  upon  what  is  ultimately  thought  about  it,  but  not  upon 
what  any  particular  person  thinks  about  it.  This  is  clearly  brought 
out  in  contrast  to  non-scientific  investigation,  where  personal  equation 
counts  for  a  great  deal  more.  "It  is  hard  to  convince  a  follower  of 


\ 


8  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

the  a  priori  method  by  adducing  facts  ;  but  show  him  that  an  opinion 
that  he  is  defending  is  inconsistent  with  what  he  has  laid  down  else- 
where, and  he  will  be  very  apt  to  retract  it.     These  minds  do  not  seem 
to  believe  that  disputation  is  ever  to  cease ;  they  seem  to  think  that 
the  opinion  which  is  natural  for  one  man  is  not  so  for  another,  and  that 
belief  will,  consequently,  never  be  settled.     In  contenting  themselves  with 
fixing  their  own  opinions  by  a  method  which  would  lead  another  man 
to  a  different  result,  they  betray  their  feeble  hold  upon  the  conception 
of  what  truth  is.     On  the  other  hand,  all  the  followers  of  science  are 
fully  persuaded  that  the  processes  of  investigation,  if  only  pushed  far 
enough,  will  give  one  certain  solution  to  every  question  to  which  they 
can  be  applied.    One  man  may  investigate  the  velocity  of  light  by  study- 
ing the  transits  of  Venus  and  the  aberration  of  the  stars ;  another  by  the 
opposition  of  Mars  and  eclipses  of  Jupiter's  satellites  ;  a  third  by  the 
method  of  Fizian. ...... .They  may  at  first  obtain  different  results,  but  as 

each  perfects  his  method  and  his  processes,  the  results  will  move 
steadily  together  toward  'a  destined  center.  So  with  all  scientific  re- 
search. Different  minds  may  set  out  with  the  most  antagonistic  views, 
but  the  process  of  investigation  carries  them  by  a  force  outside  of  them- 
selves to  one  and  the  same  conclusion".  This"' conclusion,  to  be  sure, 
may  be  long  postponed,  and  might  indeed  be  preceded  by  a  false  belief 
which  should  be  accepted  universally.  But  "the  opinion  which  would 
finally  result  from  investigation  does  not  depend  on  how  anybody  .may 

actually  think The  reality  of  that  which  is  real  does  depend  on 

the  real  fact  that  the  investigation  is  destined  to  lead,  at  last,  if  eon- 
tinned  long  enough,  to  a  belief  in* it". 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  article  does  not  intend  to  put  forward  anv 
new  theory  of  truth.  It  is  simply  an  attempt  at  expounding  a  new 
theory  of  [clearness.  ^Peirce  desires  to  describe  a  new  way  of  clearing 
up  metaphysical  disputes,  the  method,  namely,  of  finding  the  meaning 
of  each  question  by  reducing  it  to  its  experimental  consequences. 

For  Peirce  a  doctrine  could  be  perfectly  clear  and  yet  false.  This 
would  be  the  case  where  one  had  a  vivid  idea  of  all  the  outcomes  in 
experience  involved  by  the  idea,  but  yet  was  unable  to  prophesy  anv 
outcome  that  should  be  vertified  by  future  fact.  Our  idea  of  the  object 
would  not  in  that  case  'correspond  to  the  reality'  in  the  sense  of  giving 
us  a  belief  which  could  be  Verified  by  all  investigators'. 

Peirce,  then,  instead  of  having  a  radical  and  startling  theory  of 
truth  to  propose,  would  consider  himself  an  ultra-conservative  on  the 
s  question  of  what  shall  be  called  truth.  Approaching  the  matter  from 
the  standpoint  of  a  scientist,  (for  he  says  in  another  connection  that 
he  had  at  this  time  spent  most  of  his  life  in  a  laboratory),  he  is  con- 
cerned only  with  an  attempt  to  apply  "the  fruitful  methods  of  science" 


THE  PRAGMATISM  OF  PEIRCE  9 

to  "the  barren  field  of  metaphysics".  For  metaphysics  seems  to  him 
very  much  in  need  of  outside  help.  His  different  conception  ITf  ~the 
two  disciplines  may  be  seen  from  the  following  passage.  In  contrast 
io  philosophy,  he  is  eulogizing  the  natural  sciences,  "where  investigators, 
instead  of  condemning  each  the  work  of  the  others  as  misdirected  from 
beginning  to  end,  co-operate,  stand  upon  one  another's  shoulders,  and 
multiply  incontestible  results ;  where  every  observation  is  repeated, 
and  isolated  observations  count  for  little ;  where  every  hypothesis  that 
merits  attention  is  subjected  to  severe  but  fair  examination,  and  only 
after  the  predictions  to  which  it  leads  have  been  remarkably  borne  out 
by  experience  is  trusted  at  all,  and  when  only  provisionally ;  where  a 
radically  false  step  is  rarely  taken,  even  the  most  faulty  of  those 
theories  which  gain  credence  being  true  in  their  main  experiental 
predictions". 

It  is  in  a  desire  to  elevate  metaphysics  to  somewhere  near  this 
Ic^vel  that  Peirce  proposes  his  new  theory  of  clearness,  believing  that 
much  of  the  useless  disputation  of  philosophy,  as  he  sees  it,  will  end 
when  we  know  exactly  what  we  are  talking  about  according  to  this  test. 

On.  the  question  of  truth  he  might  indeed  Tiave  referred  to  another — 
of  his  early  articles,  where  the  same  idea  of  the  independence  of  truth      v 
from  individual  opinion  is  brought  out.     The  much-quoted  paper  on 
''How  To  Make  Our  Ideas  Clear"  was,  as  we  have  noted,  the  second 
of  a  series  called  "Illustrations  of  the  Logic  of  Science".     In  order  to 
^et  his  doctrine  of  truth  more  adequately  before  us,  we  may  turn  for 
a  moment  to  the  first  article  of  the  series,  the  paper  called  "The  Fixation 
of  Belief". 

Here  Peirce  begins  by  pointing  out  four  methods  for  fixing  belief. 
-In  the  first,  or  'method  of  tenacity',  one  simply  picks  out  the  belief 
which  for  some  reason  he  desires,  and  holds  to  it  by  closing  his  eyes 
to  all  evidence  pointing  the  other  way.  The  second,  or  the  'method  of 
authority',  is  the  same  except  that  the  individual  is  replaced  by  the 
state.  The  third,  or  'a  priori  method',  makes  a  thing  true  when  it  is 
'agreeable  to  reason'.  But  this  sort  of  truth  varies  between  persons, 
for  what  is  agreeable  to  reason  is  more  or  less  a  matter  of  taste. 

In  contrast  with  these,  and  especially  w7ith  the  a  priori  method,  a        \, 
method  must  be  discovered  which  will  determine  truth  entirely  apart 
from  individual  opinion.     This  is  the  method  of  science.     That  is,  "To 

satisfy  our  doubt it  is  necessary  that  a  method  should  be  found  by 

which  our  beliefs  may  be  caused  by  nothing  human,  but  by  some  external 

permanency — by  something  upon  which  our  thinking  has  no  effect 

It  must  be  something  which  affects,  or  might  affect,  every  man.  And, 
though  these  affections  are  necessarily  as  various  as  are  individual 
conditions,  yet  the  method  must  be  such  that  the  ultimate  conclusion 


io  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

of  every  man  shall  be  the  same.  Such  is  the  method  of  science.  Its 
fundamental  hypothesis,  restated  in  more  familiar  language,  is  this : 
There  are  real  things  whose  characters  are  entirely  independent  of  our 
opinions  about  them  ;  those  realities  affect  our  senses  according  to  regular 
laws,  and,  though  our  sensations  are  as 'different  as  our  relations  to  the 
objects,  yet,  by  taking  advantage  of  the  laws  of  perception,  we  can 
ascertain  by  reasoning  how  things  really  are,  and  any  man,  if  he  have 
sufficient  experience,  and  reason  enough  about  it,  will  be  led  to  one 
true  conclusion.  The  new  conception  here  involved  is  that  of  reality. 
It  may  be  asked  how  I  know  that  there  are  any  realities.  If  this 
hypothesis  is  the  sole  support  of  my  method  of  inquiry,  my  method  of 
inquiry  must  not  be  used  to  support  my  hypothesis.  The  reply  is  this  : 
i.  If  investigation  cannot  be  regarded  as  proving  that  there  are  real 
things,  it  at  least  does  not  lead  to  a  contrary  conclusion  ;  but  the  method 
and  conception  on  which  it  is  based  remain  ever  in  harmony.  No 
doubts  of  the  method,  therefore,  arise  with  its  practice,  as  is  the  case 
with  all  the  others.  2.  The  feeling  which  gives  rise  to  any  method  of 
fixing  belief  is  a  dissatisfaction  at  two  repugnant  propositions.  But 
here  already  is  a  vague  concession  that  there  is  some  one  thing  to 

which  a  proposition  should  conform Nobody,  therefore,  can  really 

cloubt  that  there  are  realities,  or,  if  he  did,  doubt  would  not  be  a  source 
of  dissatisfaction.  The  hypothesis,  therefore,  is  one  which  every  mind 
admits.  So  that  the  social  impulse  does  not  cause  me  to  doubt  it. 

3.  Everybody  uses  the  scientific  method  about  a  great  many  things, 
and  only  ceases  to  use  it  when  he  does  not  know  how  to  apply   it. 

4.  Experience  of  the  method  has  not  led  me  to  doubt  it,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  scientific  investigation  has  had  the  most  wonderful  triumphs 
in  the  way  of  settling  opinion.     These  afford  the  explanation  of  my  not 
doubting  the  method  or  the  hypothesis  which  it  supposes",     (p.  12) 

The  method  of  science,  therefore,  is  procedure  based  on  the 
hypothesis  that  there  are  realities  independent  of  what  we  may  think 
them  to  be.  This,  it  seems,  is  what  Peirce  regards  as  the  fundamental 
principle  of  the  'logic  of  science'.  This  principle,  stated  here  in  the 
first  paper,  is  again  stated  as  we  have  seen,  towards  th  close  of  the 
second  paper.  There  he  says  again,  "All  the  followers  of  science  are 
fully  persuaded  that  the  processes  of  investigation,  if  only  pushed  far 
enough,  will  give  one  certain  solution  to  every  question  to  which  they 
can  be  applied Different  minds  may  set  out  with  the  most  an- 
tagonistic views,  but  the  progress  of  investigation  carries  them  by  a 

force  outside  of  themselves  to  one  and  the  same  conclusion This 

tfreat  law  is  embodied  in  the  conception  of  truth  and  reality.  That 
opinion  which  is  fated  to  be  ultimately  agreed  to  by  air  who  investigate. 


THE  PRAGMATISM  OF  PEIRCE 

what   we  mean  by  truth,  and  the  object  represented  in  this  opinion 
This  is  the  way  I  would  explain  reality",     (p. 300). 

It  is  well  at  this  point  to  call  attention  to  a  distinction.  It  is  to  be 
noticed  that  in  the  first  paper  and  in  the  latter  part  of  the  second  he 
is  talking  of  a  method  for  attaining  truth.  But  in  the  body  of  the 
second  paper  he  is  talking  of  a  method  for  attaining  clearness.  These 
two  should  be  kept  distinct  in  our  minds.  The  use  of  the  various 
methods  described  for  finding  the  velocity  of  light  were  endeavors  to 
find  the  truth,  not  to  make  our  ideas  clear.  Clearness  and  truth  Peirce 
believes  to  have  no  invariable  connection.  He  says  in  ending  the  article 
on  "How  To  Make  Our  Ideas  Clear",  "It  is  certainly  important  to 
know  how  to  make  our  ideas  clear,  but  they  may  be  ever  so  clear 
without  being  true".  (p. 302,  italics  mine.)  There  are,  then,  two 
methods  under  consideration :  the  scientific  method  for  reaching  truth, 
with  its  postulate  that  there  are  independent  realities,  and  the  logical 
method  for  securing  clearness,  which  as  he  has  just  stated,  has  no 
necessary  connection  with  truth. 

Now  I  should  like  to  point  out,  in  criticism,  that  these  two  methods 
cannot  be  used  togethefir,  or  rather  that  the  postulate  of  the  'scientific 
method'  will  not  endure  the  test  proposed  by  the  'method  for  clearness'. 
The  scientific  method  postulates  a  reality  unaffected  by  our  opinions 
about  it.  But  when  we  apply  the  method  for  clearness  to  this  reality  it 
seems  to  vanish. 

The  process  is  this :  Peirce,  as  we  will  remember,  begins  his  dis- 
cussion of  the  real  by  defining  it  as  "that  whose  characters  are  indepen- 
dent of  what  anybody  may  think  them  to  be."  Then  passing  on  to 
apply  his  method  for  clearness  he  finds  that  "reality,  like  every  other 
quality,  consists  in  the  peculiar  sensible  effects  which  things  partaking 
of  it  produce",  and  adds  that  "the  only  effects  which  real  things  have 
is  to  cause  belief,  for  all  the  sensations  which  they  excite  emerge  into 
consciousness  in  the  form  of  beliefs".  Reality  is  the  sum  of  its  sensible 
effects,  its  sensible  effects  are  beliefs,  so  reality  is  a  sum  of  beliefs. 

Xow,  reality  cannot  be  the  sum  of  all  beliefs  regarding  the  real, 
because  reality  is  defined  in  another  connection  as  the  object  represented 
by  a  true  opinion,  and  a  true  opinion  is  that  which  is  fated  to  be  agreed 
to  after  an  investigation  is  complete.  Reality  then  can  consist  only  in 
certain  selected  beliefs.  But  if  reality  is  this  set  of  ultimately-adopted  v 
beliefs,  what  is  truth  itself?  For  truth  has  been  defined  as  the  beliefs 
which  will  be  ultimately  adopted. 

In  other  words,  when  Peirce  applies  his  method  for  clearness  to 
the  concept  of  reality,  he  reduces  reality  to  truth.  He  identifies  the  two. 


12  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

Then  there  remains  no  independent  reality  which  stands  as  a  cJicck 
on  truth.  And  this  was  the  postulate  of  his  method  of  science. 

Since  the  application  of  his  own  method  for  clearness  eliminates 
reality,  it  looks  as  though  Peirce  must  abandon  either  this  method  or 
the  postulate  of  science.  He  cannot  use  both  the  method  for  clearness 
and  the  postulate  of  the  method  of  science. 

We  must  remember  that  Peirce  was  a  pioneer  in  this  movement. 
And  in  making  the  transition  from  the  older  form  of  thought,  he 
occasionally  uses  a  word  both  in  the  old  sense  and  in  the  new.  Such 
would  seem  to  be  his  difficulty  with  the  word  'reality',  which  he  uses 
both  in  the  newer  sense  which  the  method  for  clearness  would  show 
it  to  have,  and  in  the  old  orthodox  sense  of  something  absolute.  When 

he  says  "reality consists  of  the  peculiar  sensible  effects  which  things 

partaking  of  it  produce",  he  seems  to  have  the  two  senses  of  the  word 
in  one  sentence.  Reality  consists  in  sensible  effects,  or  it  is  that  which  is 
produced  somehow  by  means  of  our  senses.  But,  when  things  partake 
of  reality,  reality  exists  in  advance  and  produces  those  effects.  Reality 
is  conceived  both  as  the  things  produced  and  as  the  producer  of  these 
things. 

A  somewhat  similar  difficulty  .occurs,  as  I  may  point  out  again  in 
criticism,  in  the  use  of  the  words  'meaning'  and  'belief.     Here  the  con- 
fusion is  caused,  not  by  using  a  word  in  two  senses,  as  in  the  case  of 
'reality',. but  by  using  both  the  words  'meaning'  and  'belief  in  the  same 
rsense.     Peirce  defines  both  'meaning'  and  'belief  as  a  sum  of  habits, 
I  and  indicates  no  difference  between  them. 

~"  Thus  he  says  of  meaning,  "There  is  no  distinction  of  meaning  so 
fine  as  to  consist  in  anything  but  a  possible  difference  in  practice".  (2^3) 
"To  develop  its  meaning,  we  have,  therefore,  simply  to  determine  what 
habits  it  produces,  for  what  a  thing  means  is  simply  what  habits  it 
involves",  (p.  292).  . 

But  he  says  similarly  of  belief,  "Belief  involves  the  establishment 
in  our  nature  of  a  rule  of  action,  or,  say  for  short,  of  a  habit".  "Since 
belief  is  a  rule  for  action,  it  is  a  new  starting  point  for  thought".  "The 
essence  of  belief  is  the  establishment  of  a  habit,  and  different  beliefs 
are  distinguished  by  the  different  modes  of  action  to  which  they  give 
rise",  (p.  291). 

Now  it  will  be  agreed  that  instead  of  defining  belief  and  meaning 
in  terms  of  the  same  thing  and  thus  identifying  them,  we  ought  sharply 
to  distinguish  between  them.  To  have  the  meaning  of  a  thing  is  not 
at  all  the  same  as  to  believe  in  it.  Thus  one  may  have  clearly  in  mind 
the  meaning  of  centaurs  or  of  fairies  or  of  any  of  the  characters  of 
mythology  without  in  the  slightest  degree  believing  in  them.  Defining 
these  things  in  terms  of  sensible  "effects,  we  could  say  that  we  know 


THE  PRAGMATISM  OF  PEIRCE  13 

their  meaning  in  the  sense  that  we  understand  which  sensible  effects 
would  be  involved  if  they  did  exist.  But  to  have  a  belief  about  flTem 
would  mean  that  we  would  expect  these  sensible  effects.  In  other  words, 
a  belief  involves  the  possibility  of  fulfillment  or  frustration  of  ex- 
pectation. To  believe  in  anything  is  therefore  a  distinct  step  beyond 
understanding  it. 

In  inserting  these  theories  of  reality  and  of  belief  in  this  discussion 
of  a  method  for  clear  apprehension,  Peirce  is  passing  beyond  a  doctrine 
of  clearness  and  involving  himself  in  a  doctrine  of  truth.  We  have 
seen  that  he  does  not  seem  to  be  able  to  maintain  the  postulated  reality 
underlying  his  description  of  the  scientific  method  for  attaining  truth. 
And  it  now  seems  that  he  is  in  equal  difficulty  with  belief.  If  meaning 
is  simply  a  sum  of  habits,  belief  is  not  simply  a  sum  of  habits,  for  the 
two  are  not  the  same.  And  if,  as  we  have  said,  the  quality  that  dis- 
tinguishes belief  from  meaning  is  the  fact  that  it  involves  expectation, 
then  we  appear  to  be  on  the  verge  of  a  new  theory  of  truth, — a  theory 
saying  that  truth  is  simply  the  fulfillment  of  these  expectations. 

Such,  we  may  note,  is  the  interpretation  that  Dewey  puts  upon  the 
pragmatic  method, — such  is  the  theory  of  truth  that  he  finds  involved 
in  it. 

The  interpretations  of  pragmatism  which  came  particularly  to  the 
notice  of  Peirce,  however,  were  those  made  by  James  and  Schiller,  and 
against  these,  we  may  say  here,  he  made  vigorous  protest.  These  he 
regarded  as  perversions  of  his  doctrine.  And  he  was  so  desirous  of 
indicating  that  his  own  theory  of  clearness  involved  for  himself  no  such 
developments  as  these,  that,  in  order  to  make  the  distinctions  clear,  he 
renamed  his  own  doctrine. 

His  first  article  of  dissent,  appearing  in  The  Monist  in  1905,  was 
directed  mainly,  however,  against  the  looseness  of  popular  usage.  He 
traces  briefly  the  doctrine's  growth.  Referring  back  to  his  original 
statement  in  1878,  he  says  of  himself  that  he  "framed  the  theory  that  a 
conception,  that  is,  the  rational  purpose  of  a  word  or  other  expression, 
lies  exclusively  in  its  conceivable  bearing  upon  the  conduct  of  life ;  so 
that,  since  obviously  nothing  that  might  not  result  from  experiment  can 
have  any  direct  bearing  upon  conduct,  if  one  can  define  acurately  all 
the  conceivably  experimental  phenomena  which  the  affirmation  or  denial 
of  a  concept  could  imply,  one  will  have  therein  a  complete  definition  of 
the  concept,  and  there  is  absolutely  nothiny  more  in  it.  For  this  doctrine 
he  [Peirce,  now  speaking"  of  himself]  invented  the  name  of  prag- 
matism  His  word  'pragmatism'  has  gained  general  recognition  in  a 

generalized  sense  that  seems  to  argue  power  of  growth  and  vitality. 
The  famed  psychologist,  James,  first  took  it  up,  seeing  that  his  'radical 
empiricism'  substantially  answered  to  the  writer's  definition,  albeit  with 


14  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

a  certain  difference  in  point  of  view.  Next  the  admirably  clear  and 
brilliant  thinker.  Air.  Ferdinand  C.  S.  Schiller,  casting  about  for  a  more 
attractive  name  for  the  'anthropomorphism'  of  his  Riddle  of  the  Sphin.r, 
lit,  in  that  most  remarkable  paper  of  his  on  Axioms  as  Postulates,  upon 
the  designition  'pragmatism',  which  in  its  original  sense  was  in  generic 
agreement  with  his  own  doctrine,  for  which  he  has  since  found  the 
more  appropriate  specification  'humanism',  while  he  still  retains  prag- 
matism in  a  somewhat  wider  sense.  So  far  all  went  happily.  But  at 
present  the  word  begins  to  be  met  with  occasionally  in  the  literary 
journals,  where  it  gets  abused  in  the  merciless  way  that  words  have  to 
expect  when  they  fall  into  literary  clutches.  Sometimes  the  manners 
of  the  British  have  effloresced  in  scolding  at  the  word  as  ill-chosen — ill- 
chosen,  that  is,  to  express  some  meaning  that  it  was  rather  designed  to 
exclude.  So,  then,  the  writer,  finding  his  bantling  'pragmatism'  so 
promoted,  feels  that  it  is  time  to  kiss  his  child  good-by  and  relinquish 
it  to  its  higher  destiny ;  while  to  serve  the  precise  purpose  of  expressing 
the  original  definition,  he  begs  to  announce  the  birth  of  the  word 
'pragmaticism',  which  is  ugly  enough  to  be  safe  from  kidnappers", 
(pp.  1 65-6). 

Three  years  later  Peirce  published  an  article  of  much  more  out- 
spoken protest,  this  time  including  in  his  repudiation  the  professional 
philosophers  as  well  as  the  popularists.  Writing  for  the  Hibbert  Jour- 
nal (v.7)  he  states  his  case  as  follows: 

"About  forty  years  ago  my  studies  of  Kant,  Berkeley,  and  others 
led  me,  after  convincing  myself  that  all  thinking  is  performed  in  signs, 
and  that  mediation  takes  the  form  of  dialogue,  so  that  it  is  proper  to 
speak  of  the  'meaning'  of  a  concept,  to  conclude  that  to  acquire  full 
mastery  of  that  meaning  it  is  requisite,  in  the  first  place,  to  learn  to 
recognize  that  concept  under  every  disguise,  through  extensive  famil- 
iarity with  instances  of  it.  But  this,  after  all,  does  not  imply  any  true 
understanding  of  it ;  so  that  it  is  further  requisite  that,  we  should  make 
an  abstract  logical  analysis  of  it  into  its  ultimate  elements,  or  as  com- 
plete an  analysis  as  we  can  compass.  But  even  so,  we  may  still  be 
without  any  living  comprehension  of  it ;  and  the  only  way  to  complete 
our  knowledge  of  its  nature  is  to  discover  and  recognize  just  what 
habits  of  conduct  a  belief  in  the  truth  of  the  concept  (of  any  conceivable 
subject,  and  under  any  conceivable  circumstances)  would  reasonably 
develop ;  that  is  to  say,  what  habits  would  ultimately  result  from  a  suf- 
ficient consideration  of  such  truth.  It  is  necessary  to  understand  the 
word  'conduct',  here,  in  the  broadest  sense.  If,  for  example,  the  predica- 
tion of  a  given  concept  were  to  lead  to  our  admitting  that  a  given  form 
of  reasoning  concerning  the  subject  of  which  it  was  affirmed  was  valid, 


THE  PRAGMATISM  OF  PEIRCE  15 

when  it  would  not  otherwise  be  valid,  the  recognition  of  that  effect_Jn 
our  reasoning  would  decidedly  be  a  habit  of  conduct".  (p.ioS). 

After  referring  to  his  own  expositions  he  continues,  " But  in 

1897  Professor  James  remodelled  the  matter,  and  transmorgrified  it  into 
a  doctrine  of  philosophy,  some  parts  of  which  I  highly  approved,  while 
other  and  more  prominent  parts  I  regarded,  and  still  regard,  as  opposed 
to  sound  logic.  About  the  same  time  Professor  Papirie  discovered,  to 
the  delight  of  the  Pragmatist  school,  that  this  doctrine  was  incapable  of 
definition,  which  would  certainly  seem  to  distinguish  it  from  every  other 
doctrine  in  whatever  branch  of  science,  I  was  coming  to  the  conclusion 
that  my  poor  little  maxim  should  be  called  by  another  name ;  and  I  ac- 
rdingly,  in  April  1905,  renamed  it  Pragmaticism."  (p.  109). 

"My  original  essay,  having  been  written  for  a  popular  monthly? 
assumes,  for  no  better  reason  than  that  real  inquiry  cannot  begin  until 
a  state  of  real  doubt  arises,  and  ends  as  soon  as  a  real  Belief  is  attained, 
that  a  'settlement  of  belief,  or  in  other  words,  a  state  of  satisfaction, 
is  all  that  Truth,  or  the  aim  of  inquiry,  consists  in.  The  reason  I  gave 
for  this  was  so  flimsy,  while  the  inference  was  so  nearly  the  gist  of  Prag- 
maticism, that  I  must  confess  the  argument  of  that  essay  might  be  said 
with  some  justice  to  beg  the  question.  The  first  part  of  the  essay  is 
occupied,  however,  with  showing  that,  if  Truth  consists  in  satisfaction, 
it  cannot  be  any  actual  .satisfaction,  but  must  be  the  satisfaction  that 
would  ultimately  be  found  if  the  inquiry  were  pushed  to  its  ultimate  and 
indefeasible  issue.  This,  I  beg  to  point  out,  is  a  very  different  position... 

from   that   of    Mr.    Schiller   and   the    pragmatists    of    to-day Their 

avowedly  undefinable  position,  if  it  be  not  capable  of  logical  char- 
acterization, seems  to  me  to  be  characterized  by  an  angry  hatred  of 
strict  logic,  and  even  a  disposition  to  rate  any  exact  thought  which 
interferes  with  their  doctrine  as  all  humbug.  At  the  same  time  it  seems 
to  me  clear  that  their  approximate  acceptance  of  the  Pragmaticistic 
principle,  and  even  that  very  casting  aside  of  difficult  distinctions  (al- 
though I  cannot  approve  of  it),  has  helped  them  to  a  mightily  clear  dis- 
cernment of  some  fundamental  truths  that  other  philosophers  have  seen 
but  through  a  mist,  or  most  of  them  not  at  all.  Among  such  truths, — all 
of  them  old,  of  course,  yet  acknowledged  by  few — I  reckon  their  denial 
of  necessitarianism ;  their  rejection  of  any  'consciousness'  different  from 
a  visceral  or  other  external  sensation  ;  their  acknowledgment  that  there 

are,  in  a  Pragmatistical  sense,  Real  habits and  their  insistence  upon 

interpreting  all  hypostatic  abstractions  in  terms  of  what  they  would 
or  might  (not  actually  will)  come  to  in  the  concrete.  It  seems  to  me  a 
pity  that  they  should  allow  a  philosophy  so  instinct  with  life  to  become 
infected  with  seeds  of  death  in  such  notions  as  that  of  the  unreality  of  all 
ideas  of  infinity  and  that  of  the  mutability  of  truth,  and  in  such  con- 


1 6  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

fusions  of  thought  as  that  of  active  willing  (willing  to  control  thought, 
to  doubt,  and  to  weigh  reasons)  with  willing  not  to  exert  the  will  (willing 
to  believe)",  (pp.in,  112). 

The  difference  between  the  position  of  Peirce  and  of  James  may  be 
stated  in  another  way  as  constituted  by  the  fact  that  James  introduces 
the  factor  of  value  as  a  criterion  for  meaning  and  for  truth,  while  for 
Peirce  these  elements  did  not  enter  the  question  at  all.  For  James  the 
value  of  a  belief  is  an  apparent  evidence  for  its  truth,  while  for  Peirce 
value  had  no  relation  to  truth.  For  an  account  of  this  development  of 
the  pragmatic  doctrine  we  pass  on  now  to  a  discussion  of  James. 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE  INTERPRETATION  GIVEN  TO  PRAGMATISM  BY  JAMES. 

James  first  uses  the  term  'pragmatism',  as  Peirce  had  done,  to  refer 
to  a  method  for  attaining  clearness.  When,  in  1898,  he  brought  again 
before  the  public  the  original  article  by  Peirce,  he  was  simply  expound- 
ing the  Peircian  doctrine  without  making  any  attempt  to  pass  beyond  it. 
But,  as  we  have  just  seen,  he  later  gave  it  a  construction,  an  interpretation 
as  a  theory  of  truth,  with  which  its  originator  could  not  agree.  In  this 
chapter  we  may,  therefore,  look  first  at  his  exposition  of  the  doctrine 
of  clearness,  and  after  that,  in  order  to  understand  James'  development 
of  the  doctrine  into  a  theory  of  truth,  we  may  turn  back  for  a  moment 
to  some  of  his  previous  publications  on  the  question  of  truth.  It  will 
then  be  possible  to  trace  chronologically  his  developing  attitude  toward 
the  truth  controversy.  From  this  we  may  pass  finally  to  an  indication 
of  some  of  the  difficulties  in  which  he  becomes  involved.  (~The  most 
important  of  these,  it  may  be  said  again,  is  that  he  construes  the  test  of 
truth  of  an  idea  to  be,  not  merely  that  the  idea  leads  to  expected  conse-  L^ 
quences,  but  that  it  leads  to  predominantly  desirable  consequences.  The 
outcomes  which  stand  as  evidence  for  truth  are  then  not  merely  out-  u- 
comes  bringing  fulfilled  expectations  but  outcomes  bringing  happiness^- 

JAMES  EXPOSITION  OF  PEIRCE. 

James  in  expounding  the  doctrine  of  Peirce  explains  the  pragmatic 
principle  as  a  method  of  investigating  philosophic  controversies,  reducing 
them  to  essentials  (clear  meanings),  and  selecting  those  worthy  of  dis- 
cussion.1 "Suppose",  he  says,  "that  there  are  two  different  philosophical 
definitions,  or  propositions,  or  maxims,  or  what  not,  which  seem  to  con- 
tradict each  other,  and  about  which  men  dispute.  If,  by  assuming  the  ; 
truth  of  the  one,  you  can  foresee  no  practical  consequence  to  anybody, 
at  any  time  or  place,  which  is  different  from  what  you  would  foresee  if 
you  assumed  the  truth  of  the  other,  why  then  the  difference  between  the 
two  propositions  is  no  real  difference — it  is  only  a  specious  and  verbal 

difference,  unworthy  of  future  contention There  can  be  no  difference 

which  does  not  make  a  difference — no  difference  in  the  abstract  truth  ~"~\ 
which  does  not  express  itself  in  a  difference  of  concrete  fact,  and  of 
conduct  consequent  upon  that  fact,  imposed  upon  somebody,  somehow^! 

somewhere  and  somewhen The  whole  function  of  philosophy  ought 

to  be  to  find  out  what  definite  difference  it  would  make  to  you  and  me/7 
at  definite  instants  of  our  life,   if  this  world-formula  or  that  world- 
lormula  be  the  one  which  is  true",     (p. 675). 


1  "The    Pragmatic    Method",    University    of    California    Chronicle    1898.      Reprinted    in 
Journal  of  Philosophy,   1904,  v.    i,  p.  673.     Page  references  are  to  the  latter. 


i8  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

/ 

This  doctrine  is  illustrated  by  using  it  to  secure  the  essence  of  two 
philosophical  questions,  materialism  vs.  theism  and  the  one  z's.  the  many. 
If  we  suppose  for  an  instant,  he  suggests,  that  this  moment  is  the  last 
moment  of  the  universe's  existence,  there  will  be  no  difference  between 
materialism  and  theism.  All  the  effects  that  might  be  ascribed  to  either 
have  come  about. 

"These  facts  are  in,  are  bagged,  are  captured ;  and  the  good  that's  in 
them  is  gained,  be  the  atom  or  be  the  God  their  cause."  (p.  677).  "The 
God,  if  there,  has  been  doing  just  what  the  atom  could  do — appearing 
in  the  character  of  atoms,  so  to  speak,  and  earning  such  gratitude  as  is 
due  to  atoms,  and  no  more".  Future  good  or  ill  is  ruled  out  by 
postulate.  Taken  thus  retrospectively,  there  could  be  no  difference  be- 
tween materialism  and  theism. 

But  taken  prospectively,  they  point  to  wholly  different  conse- 
quences. "For,  according  to  the  theory  of  mechanical  evolution,  the 
laws  of  redistribution  of  matter  and  motion,  though  they  are  certainly 
to  thank  for  all  the  good  hours  which  our  organisms  have  ever  yielded 
us  and  all  the  ideals  which  our  minds  now  frame,  are  yet  fatally  certain 
to  undo  their  work  again,  and  to  redissolve  everything  that  they  have 

evolved We  make  complaint  of  [materialism]  for  what  it  is  not — not 

a  permanent  warrant  for  our  more  ideal  interests,  not  a  fulfiller  of  our 

remotest  hopes Materialism  means  simply  the  denial  that  the  moral 

order  is  eternal,  and  the  cutting  off  of  ultimate  hopes ;  theism  means  the 
affirmation  of  an  eternal  moral  order  and  the  letting  loose  of  hope. 
Surely  here  is  an  issue  genuine  enough  for  anyone  who  feels  it 

"[And]  if  there  be  a  God,  it  is  not  likely  that  he  is  confined  solely 
to  making  differences  in  the  world's  latter  end ;  he  probably  makes  dif- 
ferences all  along  its  course.  Now  the  principle  of  practicalism  says 
that  that  very  meaning  of  the  conception  of  God  lies  in  the  differences 
which  must  be  made  in  experience  "if  the  conception  be  true.  God's 
famous  inventory  of  perfections,  as  elaborated  by  dogmatic  theology, 
either  means  nothing,  says  our  principle,  or  it  implies  certain  definite 
things  that  we  can  feel  and  do  at  certain  definite  moments  of  our  lives, 
things  that  we  could  not  feel  and  should  not  do  were  no  God  present 
and  were  the  business  of  the  universe  carried  on  by  material  atoms  in- 
stead. So  far  as  our  conceptions  of  the  Deity  involve  no  such  experi- 
ences, they  are  meaningless  and  verbal, — scholastic  entities  and  abstrac- 
tions, as  the  positivists  say,  and  fit  objects  for  their  scorn.  But  so  far 
as  they  do  involve  such  definite  experiences,  God  means  something  for 
us,  and  may  be  real".  (pp.678-68o). 

The  second  illustration  of  the  pragmatic  principle — the  supposed 

N,     opposition  between  the  One  and  the  Many — may  be  treated  more  briefly. 

James  suggests  certain  definite  and  practical  sets  of  results  in  which  to 


THE  PRAGMATISM   OF  JAMES  19 

and  tries  out  the  conception  to  see  whether  this  result 
or  that  is  what  oneness  means.  He  finds  this  method  to  clarify  the 
difficulty  here  as  well  as  in  the  previous  case.  In  summarizing  he  says : 
"I  have  little  doubt  myself  that  this  old  quarrel  might  be  completely 
smoothed  out  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  claimants,  if  only  the  maxim  of 
Peirce  were  methodically  followed  here.  The  current  jrionism  on  the^ 
whole  still  keeps  talking  in  too  abstract  a  way:  It  says  that  the  world 
must  either  be  pure  disconnectedness,  no  universe  at  all,  or  absolute 
unity.  It  insists  that  there  is  no  stopping-place  half-way.  Any  con- 
nection whatever,  says  this  monism,  is  only  possible  if  there  be  still  more 
connection,  until  at  last  we  are  driven  to  admit  the  absolutely  total  con- 
nection required.  But  this  absolutely  total  connection  either  means 
nothing,  is  the  mere  word  'one'  spelt  long,  or  else  it  means  the  sum  of 
all  the  partial  connections  that  can  possibly  be  conceived.  I  believe  that,, 
when  we  thus  attack  the  question,  and  set  ourselves  to  search  for  these 
possible  connections,  and  conceive  each  in  a  definite  and  practical  way, 
the  dispute  is  already  in  a  fair  way  to  be  settled  beyond  the  chance  of 
misunderstanding,  by  a  compromise  in  which  the  Many  and  the  One 
both  get  their  lawful  rights",  (p.  685). 

In  concluding,  James  relates  Peirce  to  the  English  Empiricists,  as- 
serting that  it  was  they  "who  first  introduced  the  custom  of  interpreting 
the  meaning  of  conceptions  by  asking  what  differences  they  make  for 

life The  great  English  way  of  investigating  a  conception  is  to  ask 

yourself  right  off,  'What  is  it  known  as?  In  what  facts  does  it  result? 
What  is  its  cash-Value  in  terms  of  particular  experience?  And  what 
special  difference  would  come  into  the  world  according  as  it  were  true 
or  false?  Thus  does  Locke  treat  the  conception  of  personal  identity. 

What  you  mean  by  it  is  just  your  chain  of  memories,  says  he So 

Berkeley  with  his  'matter'.    The  cash-value  of  matter  is  just  our  physical 

sensations Hume  does  the  same  thing  with  causation.     It  is  known 

as  habitual  antecedence Stewart  and  Brown,  James  Mill,  John  Mill, 

and  Bain,  have  followed  more  or  less  consistently  the  same  method ;  and 

Shadworth  Hodgson  has  used  it  almost  as  explicitly  as  Mr.  Peirce 

The  short-comings  and  negations  and  the  baldnesses  of  the  English 
philosophers  in  question  come,  not  from  their  eye  to  merely  practical 
results,  but  solely  from  their  failure  to  track  the  practical  results  com- 
pletely enough  to  see  how  far  they  extend",  (pp.  685-6). 

It  will  be  at  once  observed  that  James,  as  well  as  Peirce,  is  at  this 
point  saying  nothing  about  a  new  doctrine  of  truth,  but  is  concerning 
himself  only  with  a  new  doctrine  of  clearness.  Meaning  and  clearness 
of  meanings  are  his  only  topics  in  this  paper.  Thus  he  states,  "  The  only 
meaning  of  the  conception  of  God  lies  in  the  differences  which  must  be 


2O  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

made  in  experience  //  the  conception  be  true.     God's  famous  inventory 

of  perfection ..either  means  nothing,  says  our  principle,  or  it  implies 

certain  definite  things  that  we  can  feel  and  do  at  certain  definite  moments 
in  our  lives".  And  again  in  speaking  of  the  pluralism-monism  con- 
troversy, "Any  connection  whatever,  says  this  monism,  is  only  possible 
if  there  be  still  more  connection,  until  at  last  we  are  driven  to  admit 
the  absolutely  total  connection  required.  But  this  absolutely  total  con- 
nection either  means  nothing,  is  the  mere  word  'one'  spelt  long,  or  else 

it  means  the  sum  of  all  the  partial  connections.. " 

But  as  we  all  know,  James  did  afterward  embrace  the  new  prag- 
matic theory  of  truth.  While  he  did  not  in  1898  use  the  word  prag- 
matism to  designate  anything  except  a  new  method  for  securing  clear- 
ness^yet  it  can  be  shown  that  he  had  been  developing  another  line  of 
thought,  since  a  much  earlier  date,  which  did  lead  quite  directly  toward 
the  pragmatic  theory  of  truth.  It  may  be  well  at  this  point  then  to  go 
back  and  trace  the  growth  of  this  idea  of  truth  through  such  writing 
as  he  had  done  before  this  time.  It  will  be  found,  I  think,  that  James' 
whole  philosophic  tendency  to  move  away  from  the  transcendental  and 
unitary  toward  the  particular  was  influencing  him  toward  this  new  con- 
ception. 

DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  THROUGH  THE  EARLIER  WRITINGS 

OF  JAMES. 

The  first  article  which  James  wrote  on  truth,  as  he  later  states,1  \va> 
entitled  'The  Function  of  Cognition",  and  was  published  in  Mind  in 
1885.  Commenting  on  this  article  in  1909  he  asserts  that  many  of  the 
essential  theses  of  the  book  "Pragmatism",  published  twenty-two  years 
later,  were  already  to  be  found  here,  and  that  the  difference  is  mainly 
one  of  emphasis.2 

This  article  attempts  to  give  a  description  of  knowing  as  it  actually 
occurs, — not  how  it  originated  nor  how  it  is  antecedently  possible.  The 
thesis  is  that  an  idea  knows  an  external  reality  when  it  points  to  it,  re- 
sembles it,  and  is  able  to  affect  it.  The  plan  of  exposition  is  to  start  with 
the  simplest  imaginable  material  and  then  gradually  introduce  additional 
matter  as  it  is  needed  until  we  have  cognition  as  it  actually  occurs. 
James  postulates  a  single,  momentarily-existing,  floating  feeling  as  the 
entire  content,  at  the  instant,  of  the  universe.  What,  then,  can  this 
momentary  feeling  know?  Calling  it  a  'feeling  of  q',  it  can  be  made  any 
particular  feeling  (fragrance,  pain,  hardness)  that  the  reader  likes.  We 
see,  first,  that  the  feeling  cannot  properly  be  said  to  know  itself.  There 
is  no  inner  duality  of  the  knower  on  the  one  hand  and  content  or  known 


1<lThe  Meaning  of  Truth",  Preface,  p.  viii. 
2Same,  p.   137. 


THE  PRAGMATISM   OF  JAMES  21 

>n  the  other.  "If  the  content  of  the  feeling  occurs  nowhere  els«  kuthe 
universe  outside  of  the  feeling  itself,  and  perish  with  the  feeling,  com- 
mon usage  refuses  to  call  it  a  reality,  and  brands  it  as  a  subjective  feature 
of  the  feeling's  constitution,  or  at  most  as  the  feeling's  dream.  For  the 
feeling  to  be  cognitive  in  the  specific  sense,  then,  it  must  be  self-trans- 
cendent". And  we  must  therefore  "create  a  reality  outside  of  it  to  cor- 
respond to  the  intrinsic  quality  q".  This  can  stand  as  the  first  complica- 
tion of  that  universe.  Agreeing  that  the  feeling  cannot  be  said  to  know 
itself,  under  what  conditions  does  it  know  the  external  reality?  James 
replies,  "If  the  newly-created  reality  resemble  the  feeling's  quality  q,  I 
say  that  the  feeling  may  be  held  by  us  to  be  cognizant  of  that  reality". 
It  may  be  objected  that  a  momentary  feeling  cannot  properly  know  a 
thing  because  it  has  no  time  to  become  aware  of  any  of  the  relations  of 
the  thing.  But  this  rules  out  only  one  of  the  kinds  of  knowledge,  namely 
"knowledge  about"  the  thing ;  knowledge  as  direct  acquaintance  remains. 
We  may  then  assert  that  "if  there  be  in  the  universe  a  q  other  than  the  q 
in  the  feeling  the  latter  may  have  acquaintance  with  an  entity  ejective 
to  itself ;  an  acquaintance  moreover,  which,  as  mere  acquaintance  it 
would  be  hard  to  imagine  susceptible  either  of  improvement  or  increase, 
being  in  its  way  complete;  and  which  would  oblige  us  (so  long  as  we 
refuse  not  to  call  acquaintance  knowledge)  to  say  not  only  that  the 
feeling  is  cognitive,  but  that  all  qualities  of  feeling,  so  long  as  there  is^ 
anything  outside  of  them  which  they  resemble,  are  feelings  of  qualities 
of  existence,  and  perceptions  of  outward  fact".  But  this  would  be  true, 
as  unexceptional  rule,  only  in  our  artificially  simplified  universe.  If 
there  were  a  number  of  different  q's  for  the  feeling  to  resemble,  while 
it  meant  only  one  of  themj  there  would  obviously  be  something  more 
than  resemblance  in  the  case  of  the  one  which  it  did  know.  This  fact, 
that  resemblance  is  not  enough  in  itself  to  constitute  knowledge,  can  be 
seen  also  from  remembering  that  many  feelings  which  do  resemble 
each  other  closely, — e.  g.,  toothaches — do  not  on  that  account  know  each 
other.  Really  to  know  a  thing,  a  feeling  must  not  only  resemble  the 
thing,  but  must  also  be  able  to  act  on  it.  In  brief,  "the  feeling  of  qN 
knows  whatever  reality  it  resembles,  and  either  directly  or  indirectly 
operates  on.  If  it  resemble  without  operating,  it  is  a  dream;  if  it 
operates  without  resembling,  it  is  an  error".  Such  is  the  formula  for 
perceptual  knowledge.  Concepts  must  be  reduced  to  percepts,  after 
which  the  same  rule  holds.  We  may  say,  to  make  the  formula  complete, 
"A  percept  knows  whatever  reality  it  directly  or  indirectly  operates  on 
;md  resembles;  a  conceptual  feeling,  or  thought,  knows  a  reality,  when- 
ever it  actually  or  potentially  terminates  in  a  percept  that  operates  on,  or 
resembles  that  reality,  or  is  otherwise  connected  with  it  or  with  its  ^ 
context". 


22  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

"The  latter  percept  [the  one  to  which  the  concept  has  been  reduced] 
may  be  either  sensation  or  sensorial  idea  ;  and  when  I  say  the  thought 
must  terminate  in  such  a  percept,  I  mean  that  it  must  ultimately  be 
capable  of  leading  up  thereto, — by  way  of  practical  experience  if  the 
terminal  feeling  be  a  sensation ;  by  way  of  logical  or  habitual  suggestion, 
if  it  be  only  an  image  in  the  mand".  "These  percepts,  these  termini, 
these  sensible  things,  these  mere  matters  of  acquaintance,  are  the  only 
realities  we  ever  directly  know,  and  the  whole  history  of  our  thought  is 
the  history  of  our  substitution  of  one  of  them  for  the  other,  and  the 
reduction  of  the  substitute  to  the  status  of  a  conceptual  sign.  Con- 
temned though  they  be  by  some  thinkers,  these  sensations  are  the  mother- 
earth,  the  anchorage,  the  stable  rock,  the  first  and  last  limits,  the  terminus 
c.  quo  and  the  terminus  ad  quern  of  the  mind.  To  find  such  sensational 
termini  should  be  our  aim  with  all  our  higher  thought.  They  end  dis- 
cussion;  they  destroy  the  false  conceit  of  knowledge;  and  without  them 

we  are  all  at  sea  with  each  other's  meanings We  can  never  be  sure 

we  understand  each  other  till  we  are  able  to  bring  the  matter  to  this 
test.  This  is  why  metaphysical  discussions  are  so  much  like  fighting 
with  the  air ;  they  have  no  practical  issue  of  a  sensational  kind.  Sci- 
entific theories,  on  the  other  hand,  always  terminate  in  definite  percepts. 
You  can  deduce  a  possible  sensation  from  your  theory  and,  taking  me 
into  your  laboratory  prove  that  your  theory  is  true  of  my  world  by 
giving  me  the  sensation  then  and  there". 

At  this  point  James  quotes,  in  substantiation,  the  following  passage 
from  Peirce's  article  of  1878:  "There  is  no  distinction  in  meaning  so 

fine  as  to  consist  in  anything  but  a  possible  difference  in  practice It 

appears,  then,  that  the  rule  for  attaining  the  higfihest  grade  of  clearness 
of  apprehension  is  as  follows :  Consider  what  effects,  which  might 
conceivably  have  practical  bearings,  we  conceive  the  object  of  our  con- 
ception to  have.  Then  our  conception  of  these  effects  is  the  whole  of 
our  conception  of  the  object." 

In  this  early  paper  of  James'  are  to  be  found  foreshadowings  of 
pragmatism  both  as  a  method  and  as  a  theory  of  truth.  Pragmatism 
as  a  method  is  shown  in  the  whole  discussion  of  the  primacy  of  sensa- 
tions and  of  the  necessity  for  reducing  conceptions  to  perceptions.  This 
is  exactly  in  line  with  the  pragmatism  proposed  by  Peirce  in  1878  and 
here  quoted  from  by  James.  Pragmatism  as  a  theory  of  truth  is  antici- 
pated by  the  proposal  that  the  idea  knows,  and  knows  truly,  the  reality 
which  it  is  able  to  make  changes  in.  The  idea  proves  its  reference  to 
a  given  reality  by  making  these  specified  changes.  It  is  antecedently 
true  only  if  it  can  bring  about  these  changes.  Tl:<-  next  step  is  to  say 
that  its  truth  consists  in  its  ability  to  for-  d  bring  to  pass  these 


tn 

I 


'HE  PRAGMATISM   OF  JAMES 

hanges.     Then  we  have  pragmatism  as  a  theory  of  truth.     J; 
lot  take  this  step,  as  we  shall  see,  until  after  1904. 

There  is  also  a  suggestion  of  the  'subjectivity'  of  James'  later  theory 
of  truth,  which  would  differentiate  him  even  at  this  time  from  Peirce  on 
the  question  of  truth.  He  has  said  that  a  true  idea  must  indeed  resemble 
reality,  but  who,  he  asks,  is  to  determine  what  is  real  ?  He  answers  that 
an  idea^is  true  when  it  resembles  something  whichfljfas  critic,  think  to  be 
realitVj^When  [the  enquirer  ]Jfinds  tnat  trie  ieeling  that  he  is  studying 
contemplates  what  he  Himself  regards  as  a  reality  he  must  of  course 
?dmit  the  feeling  itseTPto  blTtruly" cognitive".  Peirce  would  sav  that 
the  idea  is  not  true  unless  It  points  to~a~reality  that  would  be  found  by  all 
investigators,  quite  irrespective  of  what  the  one  person  acting  as  critic 
ay  think.  James  and  Peirce  wTnilcrfhereTbre,  begih  to  diverge  even  at 
^  on  the  truth  question.  As  to  what  constitutes  clearness, 
they  are  in  agreement. 

Something  of  the  same  idea  is  stated  again  four  years  later  in  an 
tirticle  which  appeared  in  Mind1  and  which  was  republished  the  following 
year  as  a  chapter  of  the  Principles  of  Psychology.2     One  passage  will 
show  the  general  trend;  "A  conception  to  prevail,  must  terminate  in  a 
world  of  orderly  experience.     A  rare  phenomenon,  to  displace  frequent 
ones,  must  belong  with  others  more  frequent  still.    The  history  of  science 
is  strewn  with  wrecks  and   ruins  of   theory — essences   and   principles, 
fluids  and  forces — once  fondly  clung  to,  but  found  to  hang  together  with 
no  facts  of  sense.    The  exceptional  phenomena  solicit  our  belief  in  vain 
until  such  time  as  we  chance  to  conceive  of  them  as  of  kinds  already 
admitted  to  exist.    What  science  means  by  Verification'  is  no  more  than 
this,  that  no  object  of  conception  shall  be  ^believedwhich  soonor  or  later 
lias  not  some  permanent  object  of  sensation  for  its  term. ...... .Sensible 

vividness  or  pungency  is  men  the  Vital  factor  in  reality  when  once  the 
conflict  between  objects,  and  the  connecting  of  them  together  in  the 
mind,  has  begun."  (Italics  mine). 

And  in  another  connection  he  expresses  the  idea  as  follows :  "Con- 
ceptual systems  which  neither  began  nor  left  off  in  sensations  would  be 
like  bridges  without  piers.  Systems  about  fact  must  plunge  themselves 
into  sensations  as  bridges  plunge  themselves  into  the  rock.  Sensations 
are  the  stable  rock,  the  terminus  a  quo  and  the  terminus  ad  qnem  of 
thought.  To  find  such  termini  is  our  aim  with  all  our  theories — to 
conceive  first  when  and  where  a  certain  sensation  may  be  had  and  then 
to  have  it.  Finding  it  stops  discussion.  Failure  to  find  it  kills  the  false 
conceit  of  knowledge.  Only  when  you  deduce  a  possible  sensation  for 


14'The  Psychology  of  Belief",  Mind   1889,  v.   14,  p.  31. 
2Vol.  II,  chapter  XXI. 


24  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

me  from  your  theory,  and  give  it  to  me  when  and  where  the  theory  re- 
quires, do  I  begin  to  be  sure  that  your  thought  has  anything  to  do  with 
truth."  (11:7). 

In  1902  James  contributed  to  the  "Dictionary  of  Philosophy  and 
Psychology"  published  by  J.  Mark  Baldwin  the  following  definition  for 
Pragmatism. 

"The  doctrine  that  the  whole  'meaning'  of  a  conception  expresses 
itself  in  practical  consequences,  consequences  either  in  the  shape  of 
conduct  to  be  recommended,  or  in  that  of  experience  to  be  expected, 
if  the  conception  be  true ;  which  consequences  would  be  different  if  it 
were  untrue,  and  must  be  different  from  the  consequences  by  which 
the  meaning  of  other  conceptions  is  in  turn  expressed.  If  a  second  con- 
ception should  not  appear  to  have  either  consequences,  then  it  must 
really  be  only  the  first  conception  under  a  different  name.  In  methodol- 
ogy it  is  certain  that  to  trace  and  compare  their  respective  consequences 
is  an  admirable  way  of  establishing  the  different  meanings  of  different 
conceptions". 

It  will  be  seem  that  James  has  not  in  1902  differentiated  between 
pragmatism  as  a  jnetbod^and  as  a  th£QTV  of  truth.  Leaving  out  the  one 
reference  to  truth,  the  definition  is  an  excellent  statement  of  the  Peircian 
doctrine  of  clearness.  This  is  especially  to  be  noticed  in  the  last  two 
sentences,  which  are  perfectly  'orthodox'  statements  of  method  alone. 

.In  1904  and  1905  James  published  two  papers  in  Mind  on  the 
truth  question.  The  first,  "Humanism  and  Truth",  may  be  called  his 
'border-line'  article.  In  this  he  is  attempting  to  give  a  sympathetic 
interpretation  of  the  humanistic  theory  of  truth — which  he  later  said 
is  exactly  like  his  own — but  is  still  making  the  interpretation  as  an  out- 
sider. In  the  second  article  he  has  definitely  embraced  the  humanistic 
theory  and  is  defending  it. 

The  first  article  begins  as  follows  :*  "Receiving  from  the  editor  of 
Mind  an  advance  proof  of  Mr.  Bradley 's  article  for  July  on  'Truth  and 
Practice',  I  understand  this  as  a  hint  to  me  to  join  in  the  controversy 
over  'Pragmatism'  which  seems  to  have  seriously  begun.  As  my  name 
has  been  coupled  with  the  movement,  I  deem  it  wise  to  take  the  hint, 
the  more  so  as  in  some  quarters  greater  credit  has  been  given  me  than 
I  deserve,  and  probably  undeserved  discredit  in  other  quarters  falls  also 
to  my  lot. 

"First,  as  to  the  word  'pragmatism'.  I  myself  have  only  used  the 
term  to  indicate_a— method  of  carrying  on  abstract  discussion.  The 
serious  meaning  of  a  concept,  says  Mr.  Peirce,  lies  in  the  concrete  dif- 
ference to  someone  which  its  being  true  will  make.  Strive  to  bring  all 


'Mind,  N.  S.   13,  p.  457- 


HE  PRAGMATISM   OF  JAMES  25 

lebated  questions  to  that  'pragmatic'  test,  and  yon  will  escape-^ain 
Tangling:  if  it  can  make  no  practical  difference  which  of  two  state- 
icnts  be  true,  then  they  are  really  one  statement  in  two  verbal  forms ; 
it  can  make  no  practical  difference  whether  a  given  statement  be  true 
»r  false,  then  the  statement  has  no  real  meaning.  In  neither  case  is 
there  anything  fit  to  quarrel  about ;  we  may  save  our  breath,  and  pass 
to  more  important  things. 

"All  that  the  pragmatic  method  implies,  then,  is  that  truths  should 
have  practical  consequences.  In  England  the  word  halTlreefMtsed^iiibre 
broadly7~to^TDver~the -notion  that  the  truth  of  any  statement  consists  in 
the  consequences,  and  particularly  in  their  being  good  consequences. 
Here  we  get  beyond  affairs  of  method  altogether ;  and  since  this  prag- 
matism and  the  wider  pragmatism  are  so  different,  and  both  are  im- 
portant enough  to  have  different  names,  I  think  that  Mr.  Schiller's 
proposal  to  call  the  wider  pragmatism  t  by  the  name  of  'Humanism  is 
excellent  and  ought  to  be  adopted.  The  narrower  pragmatism  may  still 
be  spoken  of  as  the  'pragmatic  method'. 

"If  further  egotism  be  in  order,  I  may  say  that  the  account  of  truth 
given  by  Messrs.  Sturt  and  Schiller  and  by  Professor  Dewey  and  his 
school goes  beyond  any  theorizing  which  I  personally  had  ever  in- 
dulged in  until  I  read  their  writings.  After  reading  these,  /  feel  almost 
sure  that  these  authors  are  right  in  their  main  contentions,  but  the 
originality  is  wholly  theirs,  and  I  can  hardly  recognize  in  my  own  humble 
doctrine  that  concepts  are  teleological  instruments  anything  considerable 
enough  to  warrant  my  being  called,  as  I  have  been,  the  'father'  ot  so 
important  a  movement  forward  in  philosophy".1  (Italic  mine). 

"I  think  that  a  decided  effort  at  a  sympathetic  mental  play  with 
humanism  is  the  provisional  attitude  to  be  recommended  to  the  reader. 

"When  I  find  myself  playing  sympathetically  witli  humanism,  some- 
thing like  what  follows  is  what  I  end  by  conceiving  it  to  mean".  (Italics 
mine). 

Such  is  the  conservative  tone  in  which  the  article  is  begun.  Yet 
before  it  is  ended  we  find  these  passages :  "It  seems  obvious  that  the 
pragmatic  account  of  all  this  routine  of  phenomenal  knowledge  is  ac- 
curate", (p. 468).  "The  humanism,  for  instance,  which  I  see  and  try 
to  hard  to  defend,  is  the  completest  truth  attained  from  my  point  of 
view  up  to  date",  (p. 472). 

In  a  supplementary  article,  "Humanism  and  Truth  Once  More", 
published  a  few  months  later  in  answer  to  questions  prompted  by  this 
one,  the  acceptance  of  humanism  is  entirely  definite.  And  here  James 


JThis  paragraph  appears  as  a  footnote. 


26  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

finds  that  he  has  been  advocating  the  doctrine  for  several  years.  He 
says,  "I  myself  put  forth  on  several  occasions  a  radically  pragmatist 
account  of  knowledge".  (Mind,  v.  14,  p.  196).  And  again  he  remarks, 
"When  following  Schiller  and  Dewey,  I  define  the  true  as  that  which 
gives  the  maximal  combination  of  satisfaction ".'  (p. 196). 


THE  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  IN  'FRAGMATISM'  AND  'THE 
MEANING  OF  TRUTH'. 

In  1907  when  he  published  his  book  "Pragmatism",  James,  as  we 
all  know,  was  willing  to  accept  the  new  theory  of  truth  unreservedly. 
The  hesitating  on  the  margin,  the  mere  interpreting  of  other's  views, 
are  things  of  the  past.  From  1907  James'  position  toward  pragmatism 
as  a  truth-theory  is  unequivocal. 

Throughout  the  book,  as  I  should  like  to  point  out,  James  is  using 
'pragmatism'  in  two  senses,  and  'truth'  in  two  senses.  The  two  mean- 
ings of  pragmatism  he  recognizes  himself,  and  points  out  clearly  the 
difference  between  pragmatism  as  a  method  for  attaining  clearness  in 
our  ideas  and  pragmatism  as  a  theory  of  the  truth  or  falsity  of  those 
ideas.  But  the  two  meanings'  of  'truth'  he  does  not  distinguish.  And 
it  is  here  that  he  differs  from  Dewey,  as  we  shall  presently  see.  He 
differed  from  Peirce  on  the  question  of  the  meaning  of  pragmatism — as 
to  whether  it  could  be  developed  to  include  a  doctrine  of  truth  as  well  as 
of  clearness.  He  differs  from  Dewey  on  the  question  of  'truth' — as  to  .3 
whether  truth  shall  be  used  in  both  of  the  two  specified  senses  or  only 
in  one  of  them. 

'The  Ambiguity  of  'Satisfaction' — The  double  meaning  of  truth  in 
James'  writing  at  this  date  may  be  indicated  in  this  way  :  While  truth 
is  to  be  defined  in  terms  of  satisfaction,  what  is  satisfaction?  Does  it 
mean  that  I  am  to  be  satisfied  of  a  certain  quality  in  the  idea,  or  that  I 
am  to  be  satisfied  by  it?  In  other  words,  is  the  criterion  of  truth  the 
fact  that  the  idea  leads  as  it  promised  or  is  it  the  fact  that  its  leading, 
whether  just  as  it  promised  or  not,  is  desirable?  Which,  in  short,  are 
we  to  take  as  truth, — fulfilled  expectations  or  value  of  results? 

It  is  in  failing  to  distinguish  between  these  two  that  James  involves 
himself,  I  believe,  in  most  of  his  difficulties,  and  it  is  in  the  recognition" 
and  explicit  indication  of  this  difference  that  Dewey  differentiates  him- 
self from  James.  We  may  pass  on  to  cite  specific  instances  in  which 
James  uses  each  of  these  criteria.  We  will  find,  of  course,  that  there 
are  passages  which  can  be  interpreted  as  meaning  either  value  or  fulfill- 
ment, but  there  are  many  in  which  the  use  of  value  as  a  criterion  seems 
unmistakable. 

The  following  quotations  may  be  instanced:  "If  theological  views 
prove  to  have  value  for  concrete  life,  they  will  be  true,  for  pragmatism, 


THE  PRAGMATISM   OF  JAMES  27 

in  the  sense  of  being  good  for  so  much.  For  how  much  more  they  are 
true,  will  depend  entirely  on  their  relation  to  the  other  truths  that  have 
also  to  be  acknowledged".  For  example,  in  so  far  as  the  Absolute 
affords  comfort,  it  is  not  sterile ;  "it  has  that  amount  of  value ;  it  per- 
forms a  concrete  function.  I  myself  ought  to  call  the  Absolute  true 
'in  so  far  forth',  then;  and  I  unhesitatingly  now  do  so",  (p. 72). 

"On  pragmatic  principles,  if  the  hypothesis  of  God  works  satis- 
factorily 'in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word,  it  is  true.  Now  whatever 
its  residual  difficulties  may  be,  experience  shows  that  it  certainly  does 
work,  and  that  the  problem  is  to  build  out  and  determine  it  so  that  it 
will  combine  satisfactorily  with  all  the  other  working  truths",  (p.  299). 

"The  true  is  the  name  for  whatever  proves  itself  to  be  good  in  the  >. 
way  of  belief,  and  good,  too,  for  definite,  assignable  reasons",     (p.  76).    / 

"Empirical  psychologists have  denied  the  soul,  save  as  the  name  * 

for  verifiable  cohesions  in  our  inner  life.  They  redescend  into  the 
stream  of  experience  with  it,  and  cash  it  into  so  much  small-change 
value  in  the  way  of  'ideas'  and  their  connections  with  each  other.  The 
soul  is  good  or  'true  for  just  so  much,  but  no  more",  (p.  92,  italics  mine) . 
"Since  almost  any  object  may  some  day  become  temporarily  im- 
portant, the  advantage  of  having  a  stock  of  extra  truths,  of  ideas  that 

shall  be  true  of  merely  possible  situations,  is  obvious Whenever  such 

extra  truths  become  practically  relevant  to  one  of  our  emergencies,  it 
passes  from  cold  storage  to  do  work  in  the  world  and  our  belief  in  it    ^ 
grows  active.     You  can  say  of  it  then  either  that  'it  is  useful  because  it 
is  true'  or  that  it  is  '  true-because.  -it  is- useful'.     Both  these  phrases  mean 

exactly  the  same  thing From  this  simple  cue  pragmatism  gets  her 

general  notion  of  truth  as  something  essentially  bound  up  with  the  way  j 
in  which  one  moment  in  our  experience  may  lead  us  towards  other 
moments  which  it  will  be  worth  while  to  have,  been  led  to.  Primarily, 
and  on  the  common-sense  level,  the  truth  of  a  state  of  mind  means  this 
function  of  a  leading  MiaL_is.-wertlL.  while" .  (pp.  204-205,  italics  mine). 
"To  'agreeTn  the  widest  sense  with  reality  can  only  mean  to  be 
guided  either  straight  up  to  it  or  into  its  surroundings,  or  to  be  put  into 
such  working  touch  with  it  as  to  handle  either  it  or  something  connected 
with  it  better  than  if  we  disagreed.  Better  either  intellectually  or 

practically! Any  idea  that  helps  us  to  deal,  whether  practically  or 

intellectually,  with  either  reality  or  its  belongings,  that  doesn't  entangle 
our  progress  in  frustrations,  that  fits,  in  fact,  and  adapts  our  life  to  the 

reality's  whole  setting,  will hold  true  of  that  reality",   (pp.  212-213). 

"  'The  true',  to  put  it  very  briefly,  is  only  the  expedient  in  the  way 
of  our  thinking,  just  as  the  'right'  is  only  the  expedient  in  the  way  of 
our  behaving.  E.vpedieiiTITratJno^t  Tltiy  fashion;  and  expedient  in  the 
long  run  and  on  the  whole  of  course",  (p.  222). 


28  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

We  may  add  a  passage  with  the  same  bearing,  from  "The  Mean- 
ing of  Truth".  In  this  quotation  James  is  retracting  the  statement  made 
in  the  University  of  California  Address  that  without  the  future  there 
is  no  difference  between  theism  and  materialism.  He  says  :  "Even  if 
matter  could  do  every  outward  thing  that  God  does,  the  idea  of  it  would 
not  work  as  satisfactorily,  because  the  chief  call  for  a  God  on  modern 
men's  part  is  for  a  being  who  will  inwardly  recognize  them  and  judge 
them  sympathetically.  Matter  disappoints  this  craving  of  our  ego,  and 
so  God  remains  for  most  men  the  truer  hypothesis,  and  indeed  remain 
so  for  definite  pragmatic  reasons",  (p.  189,  notes). 

The  contrast  between  'intellectual'  and  'practical'  seems  to  make 
his  position  certain.  If  truth  is  tested  by  practical  wrorkings,  as  con- 
trasted with  intellectual  workings,  it  cannot  be  said  to  be  limited  to  ful- 
filled expectation^ 

The  statement  that  the  soul  is  good  or  true  shows  the  same  thing. 
The  relation  of  truth  to  extraneous  values  is  here  beyond  question. 
The  other  passages  all  bear,  more  or  less  obviously,  in  the  same  direction. 

As  James  keeps  restating  his  position,  there  are  many  of  the  defini- 
tions that  could  be  interpreted  to  mean  either  values  or  fulfillments,  and 
even  a  few  which  seem  to  refer  to  fulfillment  alone.  The  two  following 
examples  can  be  taken  to  mean  either : 

"Truth'    in   our^deas^and.  beliefs   means that    ideas    (which 

themselves  are  but  parts  of  our  experience)  become  true  just  in  so  far 
as  they  help  us  to  get  into  satisfactory  relation  with  other  parts  of  our 
experience,  to  summarize  them  and  get  about  among  them  by  con- 
ceptual short-cuts  instead  of  following  the  interminable  succession  of 
particular  phenomena.  Any  idea  upon  which  we  can  ride,  so  to  speak  ; 
any  idea  that  will  carry  us  prosperously  from  one  part  of  our  exper- 
ience to  any  other  part,  linking  things  satisfactorily,  working  securely, 
simplifying,  saving  labor,  is  true  for  just  so  much,  true  in  so  far  forth, 
true  instrumentally".  (p. 58). 

"A  new  opinion  counts  as  true  just  in  proportion  as  it  gratifies  the 
individual's  desire  to  assimilate  the  novel  in  his  experience  to  his  beliefs 
in  stock.  It  must  both  lean  on  old  truth  and  grasp  new  fact ;  and  its  suc- 
cess  in  doing  this,  is  a  matter  for  individual  appreciation.  When 

old  truth  grows,  then,  by  new  truth's  addition,  it  is  for  subjective  ressons. 
We  are  in  the  process  and  obey  the  reasons.  The  new  idea  is  truest 
which  performs  most  felicitously  its  function  of  satisfying  this  double 
urgency .4  It  makes,  itself  true,  gets  itself  classed  as  true,  by  the  way  it 
works."  (p.64). 

But  we  can  turn  from  these  to  a  paragraph  in  which  truth  seems 
to  be  limited  to  fulfilled  expectations  alone. 

"True  ideas  are  those  which  we  can  assimilate,  validate,  corroborate, 


vm<:  PRAGMATISM 

mid  verify.     False  ideas  are  those  which  we  cannot.     That  is  the  .prac- 
tical difference  it  makes  to  us  to  have  true  ideas ;  that,  therefore,  is  the_ 
meaning  of  truth,  for  it  is  all  that  truth  is  known  as 

"But  what  do  validation  and  verification  themselves  pragmatically 
mean?  They  again  signify  certain  practical  consequences  of  the  verified 

and   validated   idea They   head   us through   the   acts   and   other 

ideas  which  they  instigate,  into  or  up  to,  or  towards,  other  parts  of  ex- 
perience with  which  we  feel  all  the  while that  the  original  ideas  re- 
main in  agreement.  The  connections  and  transitions  come  to  us  from 
point  to  point  as  being  progressive,  harmonious,  satisfactory.  This 
function  of  agreeable  leading  is  what  we  mean  by  an  idea's  verifica- 
tion". (pp.2OI-2O2). 

The  Relation  of  Truth  to  Utility — It  seems  certain  from  the 
foregoing  that  James  means,  at  least  at  certain  times,  to  define  the  true 
in  terms  of  the  valuable.  Satisfaction  he  is  using  as  satisfaction  by 
rather  than  satisfaction  of.  As  we  have  pointed  out,  one  may  be  satis- 
fied of  the  correctness  of  one's  idea  without  being  at  all  satisfied  by  it. 
This  distinction  has  been  most  clearly  set  forth  by  Boodin,  in  his  discus- 
sion of  'What  pragmatism  is  not',  in  the  following  words :  "The  truth 
satisfaction  may  run  counter  to  any  moral  or  esthetic  satisfaction  in  the 
particular  case.  It  may  consist  in  the  .discovery  that  the  friend  we  had 
backed  had  involved  us  in  financial  failure,  that  the  picture  we  had 
bought  from  the  catalogue  description  is  anything  but  beautiful.  But 
we  are  no  longer  uncertain  as  regards  the  truth.  Our  restlessness,  so 
far  as  that  particular  curiosity  .is  concerned,  has  come  to  an  end".1 

It  is  clear  then,  that  the  discovery  of  truth  is  not  to  be  identified^ 
with  a  predominantly  satisfactory  state  of  mind  at  the  moment.  Our 
state  of  mind  at  the  moment  may  have  only  a  grain  of  satisfaction,  yet 
this  is  of  so  unique  a  kind  and  so  entirely  distinguishable  from  the  other 
contents  of  the  mind  that  it  is  perfectly  practicable  as  a  criterion.  It  is 
simply  "the  cessation  of  the  irritation  of  a  doubt",  as  Peirce  puts  it.  or 
.  the  feeling  that  my  idea  has  led  as  it  promised.  The  feeling  of  fulfilled 
expectation  is  thus  a  very  distinct  and  recognizable  part  of  the  whole 
general  feeling  commonly  described  as  'satisfaction'.  When  'utility'  in 
our  ideas,  therefore,  means  a  momentary  feeling  of  dominant  satisfac- 
tion, truth  cannot  be  identified  with  it. 

And  neither,  as  I  wish  now  to  point  out,  can  truth  be  identified 
with  utility  when  utility  means  a  long-run  satisfactoriness,  or  satisfac- 
loriness  of. the  idea  for  a  considerable  number  of  people  through  a  con- 
siderable period  of  time.  The  same  objection  arises  here  which  we 
noted  a  moment  ago — that  the  satisfaction  may  be  quite  indifferent  to 


1Boodin:     Truth  and  Reality,  pp.  193-4. 


30  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

the  special  satisfaction  arising  from  tests.  As  has  been  often  shown, 
many  ideas  are  satisfactory  for  a  long  period  of  time  simply  because 
they  are  not  subjected  to  tests.  "A  hope  is  not  a  hope,  a  fear  is  not  a 

fear,  once  either  is  recognized  as  unfounded A  delusion  is  delusion 

only  so  long  as  it  is  not  known  to  be  one.  A  mistake  can  be  built  upon 
only  so  long  as  it  is  not  suspected". 

Some  actual  delusions  which  were  not  readily  subjected  to  tests 
have  been  long  useful  in  this  way.  "For  instance,  basing  ourselves  on 
Lafcadio  Hearn,  we  might  quite  admit  that  the  opinions  summed  up 
under  the  title  'Ancestor- Worship'  had  been 'exactly  what  was  re- 
quired' by  the  former  inhabitants  of  Japan".  "It  was  good  for  primitive 

man  to  believe  that  dead  ancestors  required  to  be  fed  and  honored 

because  it  induced  savages  to  bring  up  their  offspring  instead  of  letting 
it  perish.  But  although  it  was  useful  to  hold  that  opinion,  the  opinion 
was  false".  "Mankind  has  always  wanted,  perhaps  always  required, 
and  certainly  made  itself,  a  stock  of  delusions  and  sophisms".1 

Perhaps  we  would  all  agree  that  the  belief  that  'God  is  on  our  side' 
has  been  useful  to  the  tribe  holding  it.  It  has  increased  zeal  and  fight- 
ing efficiency  tremendously.  But  since  God  can't  be  on  both  sides,  the 
belief  of  one  party  to  the  conflict  is  untrue,  no  matter  how  useful.  To 
believe  that  (beneficial)  tribal  customs  are  enforced  by  the  tribal  gods 
is  useful,  but  if  the  tribal  gods  are  non-existent  the  belief  is  false.  The 
beautiful  imaginings  of  poets  are  sometimes  useful  in  minimizing  and 
disguising  the  hard  and  ugly  reality,  but  when  they  will  not  test  out 
they  cannot  be  said  because  of  their  beauty  or  desirability  to  be  true. 

We  must  conclude  then,  that  some  delusions  are  useful.  And  we 
may  go  on  and  question  James'  identification  of  truth  and  utility  from 
another  point  of  view.  Instead  of  agreeing  that  true  ideas  and  useful 
ideas  are  the  same,  we  have  shown  that  some  useful  ideas  are  false : 
but  the  converse  is  also  demonstrable,  that  some  true  ideas  are  useless. 

There  are  formulas  in  pure  science  which  are  of  no  use  to  anyone 
outside  the  science  because  their  practical  bearings,  if  such  there  be, 
have  not  yet  been  discovered,  and  are  of  no  use  to  the  scientist  himself 
because,  themselves  the  products  of  deduction,  they  as  yet  suggest  noth- 
ing that  can  be  developed  farther  from  them.  While  these  formulas 
may  later  be  found  useful  in  either  of  these  senses — for  'practical  de- 
mands' outside  the  science,  or  as  a  means  to  something  else  within  the 
science — they  are  now  already  true  quite  a  pan  from  utility,  because 
they  will  test  out  by  fulfilling  expectations. 

Knowledge  that  is  not  useful  is  most  striking  in  relation  to  'vice'. 


1Lee:     Vital  Lies,  vol.  i,  pp. 


THE  PRAGMATISM   OF  JAMES  31 

One  may  have  a  true  idea  as  to  how  to  lie  and  cheat,  may  know_what 
cheating  is  and  how  it  is  done,  and  yet  involve  both  himself  and  others 
in  most  ////satisfactory  consequences.  The  person  who  is  attempting  to 
stop  the  use  of  liquor,  and  who  to  this  end  has  located  in  a  'dry'  district, 
may  receive  correct  information  as  to  the  location  of  a  'blind-tiger' — in- 
formation which  while  true  may  bring  about  his  downfall.  Knowledge 
about  any  form  of  vice,  true  knowledge  that  can  be  tested  out,  may 
upon  occasion  be  harmful  to  any  extent  we  like. 

We  may  conclude  this  section  by  citing  a  paragraph  which  will 
show  the  fallacious  reasoning  by  which  James  came,  to  identify  the 
truth  and  the  utility  of  ideas.  At  one  point  in  replying  to  a  criticism 
he  says :  "I  can  conceive  no  other  objective  content  to  the  notion  of  an 
ideally  perfect  truth  than  that  of  penetration  into  [a  completely  satis- 
factory] terminus,  nor  can  I  conceive  that  the  notion  would  ever  have 
grown  up,  or  that  true  ideas  would  ever  have  been  sorted  out  from  false 
or  idle  ones,  save  for  the  greater  sum  of  satisfactions,  intellectual  or 
practical,  which  the  truer  ones  brought  with  them.  Can  we  imagine  a 
man  absolutely  satisfied  with  an  idea  and  with  all  his  relations  to  his 
other  ideas  and  to  his  sensible  experiences,  who  should  yet  not  take  its 
content  as  a  true  account  of  reality?  The  matter  of  the  true  is  thus 
absolutely  identical  with  the  matter  of  the  satisfactory.  You  may  put 
either  word  first  in  your  way  of  talking ;  but  leave  out  that  whole  notion 
of  satisfactory  working  or  leading  (which  is  the  essence  of  my  prag- 
matic account)  and  call  truth  a  static,  logical  relation,  independent  even 
of  possible  leadings  or  satisfactions,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  you  cut  all 
ground  from  under  you".  (Meaning  of  Truth,  p.  I6O).1 

Now  it  is  to  be  observed  that  this  paragraph  contains  at  least  three 
logical  fallacies.  In  the  first  sentence  there  is  a  false  assumption,  namely 
that  'all  that  survives  is  valuable'.  'Then',  we  are  given  to  understand, 
'since  true  ideas  survive,  they  must  be  valuable'.  No  biologist  would 
agree  to  this  major  premise.  'Correlation'  preserves  many  things  that 
are  not  valuable,  as  also  do  other  factors. 

In  the  second  sentence  there  is  an  implied  false  conversion.  The 
second  sentence  says,  irusubstance,  that  all  true  ideas  are  satisfactory 
(valuable).  This  is  supposed  to-prove  the  assertion  of  the  first  sentence, 
namely,  that  all  satisfactory  (valuable)  ideas  are  true. 


*It  is  interesting  to  see  that  Peirce  had  the  following  comment  to  make  in  1878  upon  the 
utility  of  truth.  "Logicality  in  regard  to  practical  matters  is  the  most  useful  quality  an 
animal  can  possess,  and  might,  therefore,  result  from  the  action  of  natural  selection;  but  out- 
side of  these  it  is  probably  of  more  advantage  to  the  animal  to  have  his  mind  filled  with 
pleasing  and  encouraging  visions,  independently  of  their  truth;  and  thus  upon  impractical 
subjects,  natural  selection  might  occasion  a  fallacious  tendency  of  thought".  (From 
the  first  article  in  the  series  "Illustrations  of  the  Logic  of  Science",  Popular  Science 
Monthly,  vol.  12,  p.  3). 


32  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

In  the  last  sentence  there  is  a  false  disjunction.  Truth,  it  is  stated, 
must  either  be  satisfactory  (valuable)  working,  or  a  static  logical  rela- 
tion. We  have  tried  to  show  that  it  may  simply  mean  reliable  working 
or  working  that  leads  as  it  promised.  This  may  be  neither  predomi- 
nantly valuable  working  nor  a  static  logical  relation. 

The  Relation  of  Satisfaction  to  Agreement  and  Consistency. — James 
continually  reasserts  that  he  has  'remained  an  epistemological  realist', 
that  he  has  'always  postulated  an  independent  reality',  that  ideas  to  be 
true  must  'agree  with  reality',  etc.1 

Reality  he  defines  most  clearly  as  follows : 

"  'Reality'  is  in  general  what  truths  have  to  take  account  of 

"The  first  part  of  reality  from  this  point  of  view  is  the  flux  of  our 

sensations.  Sensations  are  forced  upon  us Over  their  nature,  order 

and  quantity  we  have  as  good  as  no  control 

"The  second  part  of  reality,  as  something  that  our  beliefs  must 
also  take  account  of,  is  the  relations  that  obtain  between  their  copies  in 
our  minds.  This  part  falls  into  two  sub-parts  :  ( i )  the  relations  that  are 
mutable  and  accidental,  as  those  of  date  and  place;  and  (2)  those  that 
are  fixed  and  essential  because  they  are  grounded  on  the  inner  nature 
of  their  terms.  Both  sorts  of  relation  are  matters  of  immediate  per- 
ception. Both  are  'facts' 

"The  third  part  of  reality,  additional  to  these  perceptions  (tho 
largely  based  upon  them),  is  the  previous  truths  of  which  every  new 
•inquiry  takes  account".  (Pragmatism,  p.  244). 

An  idea's  agreement  with  reality,  or  better  with  all  those  parts  of 
reality,  means  a  satisfactory  relation  of  the  idea  to  them.  Relation  to 
the  sensational  part  of  reality  is  found  satisfactory  when  the  idea  leads 

to  it  without  jar  or  discord.  " What  do  the  words  verification  and 

validation  themselves  pragmatically  mean?  They  again  signify  certain 
practical  consequences  of  the  verified  and  validated  idea.  It  is  hard 
to  find  any  one  phrase  that  characterizes  these  consequences  better  than 
the  ordinary  agreement-formula — just  such  consequences  being  what  we 
have  in  mind  when  we  say  that  our  ideas  'agree'  with  reality.  They 
lead  us,  namely,  through  the  acts  and  other  ideas  which  they  instigate, 
into  and  up  to,  or  towards,  other  parts  of  experience  with  which  we  feel 
all  the  while that  the  original  ideas  remain  in  agreement.  The  con- 
nections and  transitions  come  to  us  from  point  to  point  as  being  pro- 
gressive, harmonious,  satisfactory.  This  function  of  agreeable  leading 
is  what  we  mean  by  an  idea's  verification".  (Pragmatism,  pp.  201-2). 

An  idea's  relation  to  the  other  parts  of  reality  is  conceived  more 
broadly.  Thus  pragmatism's  "only  test  of  probable  truth  is  what  works 


JFor  example,  in  the  Meaning  of  Truth,  pagges  195  and  233. 


THE  PRAGMATISM   OF  JAMES  33 

best  in  the  way  of  leading  us,  what  fits  every  part  of  life  best  and  com- 
bines with  the  collectivity  of  life's  demands,  nothing  being  omitted,  if 
theological  ideas  should  do  this,  if  the  notion  of  God,  in  particular,  should 
prove  to  do  it,  how  could  pragmatism  possibly  deny  God's  existence? 
She  could  see  no  meaning  in  treating  as  'not  true'  a  notion  that  was 
pragmatically  so  successful.  What  other  kind  of  truth  could  there  be, 
for  her,  than  all  this  agreement  with  concrete  reality"?  (Pragmatism, 
p.  80,  italics  mine).  Agreement  with  reality  here  means  ability  to 
satisfy  the  sum  of  life's  demands. 

James  considers  that  this  leaves  little  room  for  license  in  the  choice 
of  our  beliefs.  "Between  the  coercions  of  the  sensible  order  and  those 
of  the  ideal  order,  our  mind  is  thus  wedged  tightly".  "Our  (any) 
theory  must  mediate  between  all  previous  truths  and  certain  new  exper- 
iences. It  must  derange  common  sense  and  previous  belief  as  little  as 
possible,  and  it  must  lead  to  some  sensible  terminus  or  other  that  can  be 
verified  exactly.  To  'work'  means  both  these  things ;  and  the  squeeze 
is  so  tight  that  there  is  little  loose  play  for  any  hypothesis.  Our  theories 
are  thus  wedged  and  controlled  as  nothing  else  is".  "Pent  in,  as  the 
pragmatist  more  than  anyone  else  sees  himself  to  be,  between  the  whole 
body  of  funded  truths  squeezed  from  the  past  and  the  coercions  of  the 
world  of  sense  about  him,  who  so  well  as  he  feels  the  immense  pressure 
of  objective  control  under  which  our  minds  perform  their  operations". 
(Pragmatism,  pp.  211,  217,  233). 

Now  on  the  contrary  it  immediately  occurs  to  a  reader  that  if 
reality  be  simply  "what  truths  have  to  take  account  of",  and  if  taking- 
account-of  merely  means  agreeing  in  such  a  way  as  to  satisfy  "the  col- 
lectivity of  life's  demands",  then  the  proportion  in  which  these  parts  of 
reality  will  count  will  vary  enormously.  One  person  may  find  the 
'previous-truths'  part  of  reality  to  make  such  a  strong  'demand'  that 
he  will  disregard  'principles'  or  reasoning  almost  entirely.  % 

Another  may  disregard  the  'sensational'  part  of  reality,  and  give  no 
consideration  whatever  to  'scientific'  results.  These  things,  in  fact,  are 
exactly  the  things  that  do  take  place.  The  opinionated  person,  the 
crank,  the  fanatic,  as  well  as  the  merely  prejudiced,  all  refuse  to  open 
their  minds  and  give  any  particular  consideration  to  such  kinds  of 
evidence.  There  is  therefore  a  great  deal  of  room  for  license,  and  a 
great  deal  of  license  practiced,  when  the  agreement  of  our  ideas  with 
reality  means  nothing  more  than  their  satisfactoriness  to  our  lives'  de- 
mands, ^jjjl 

How  James  fell  into  this  error  is  shown,  I  believe,  by  his  over- 
estimation  of  the  common  man's  regard  for  truth,  and  especially  for 
consistency.  Thus  he  remarks :  "As  we  humans  are  constituted  in 
point  of  fact,  we  find  that  to  believe  in  other  men's  minds,  in  inde- 


34  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

pendent  physical  realities,  in  past  events,  in  eternal  logical  relations,  is 

satisfactory Above  all  we  find  consistency  satisfactory,  consistency 

between  the  present  idea  and  the  entire  rest  of  our  mental  equipment " 

"After  man's  interest  in  breathing  freely,  the  greatest  of  all  his  in- 
terests (because  it  never  fluctuates  or  remits,  as  most  of  his  physical 
interests  do),  is  his  interest  in  consistency,  in  feeling  that  what  he  now 
thinks  goes  with  what  he  thinks  on  other  occasions".  (Meaning  of 
ruth,  pp.  192,  211). 

The  general  method  of  James  on  this  point,  then,  is  to  define  truth 
in  terms  of  satisfaction  and  then  to  try  to  show  that  these  satisfactions 
cannot  be  secured  illegitimately.  That  is,  that  \vefnntst  defer  to  experi- 
mental findings,  to  consistency,  and  to  other  checks  on  opinion.  Con- 
sistency must  be  satisfactory  because  people  are  so  constituted  as  to 
find  it  so.  Agreement  with  reality,  where  reality  means  epistemological 
reality,  is  satisfactory  for  the  same  reason.  And  agreement  with  reality, 
where  reality  includes  in  addition  principles  and  previous  truths,  must 
be  satisfactory  because  agreement  in  this  case  merely  means  such  tak- 
ing-account-of  as  will  satisfy  the  greater  proportion  of  the  demands  of 
life.  In  other  words,  by  defining  agreement  in  this  case  in  terms  of 
satisfactions,  he  makes  it  certain  that  agreement  and  satisfaction  will 
coincide  by  the  device  of  arguing  in  a  circle.  It  turns  out  that,  from 
over-anxiety  to  assure  the  coincidence  of  agreement  and  satisfaction,  he 
entirely  loses  the  possibility  of  using  reality  and  agreement  with  reality 
in  the  usual  sense  of  checks  on  satisfactions. 


CHAPTER  III. 
THE  PRAGMATIC  DOCTRINE  AS  SET  FORTH  BY  DEWEY. 

The  position  of  Dewey  is  best  represented  in  his  paper  called  "The 
Kxperimehtal  Theory  of  Knowledge".1  In  the  method  of  presentation, 
this  article  is  much  like  James'  account  "The  Function  of  Cognition". 
Roth  assume  some  simple  type  of  consciousness  and  study  it  by  gradually 
introducing  more  and  more  complexity.  In  aim,  also,  the  two  are 
similar,  for  the  purpose  of  each  is  simply  to  describe.  Dewey  attempts 
here  to  tell  of  a  knowing  just  as  one  describes  any  other  object,  concern, 
or  event.  "What  we  want",  he  announces  "is  just  something  which 
takes  itself  for  knowledge,  rightly  or  wrongly". 

Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  we  have  simply  a  floating  odor.  If  this 
odor  starts  changes  that  end  in  picking  and  enjoying  a  rose,  what  sort 
of  changes  must  these  be  to  involve  some  where  within  their  course  that 
which  we  call  knowledge  ? 

Now  it  can  be  shown,  first,  that  there  is  a  difference  between  know- 
ing and  mere  presence  in  consciousness. \  If  the  smell  is  simply  dis- 
placed by  a  felt  movement,  and  this  in  turn  is  displaced  by  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  rose,  in  such  a  way  that  there  is  no  experience  of  connec- 
tion between  the  three  stages  of  the  process, — that  is,  without  the  ap- 
pearance of  memory  or  anticipation, — then  "such  an  experience  neither 
is,  in  whole  or  in  part,  a  knowledge".  "Acquaintance  is  presence  honored  \ 
by  an  escort ;  presence  is  introduced  as  familiar,  or  an  association  springs  \ 
up  to  greet  it.  Acquaintance  always  implies  a  little  friendliness;  a  trace 
of  re-knowing,  of  anticipatory  welcome  or  dread  of  the  trait  to  fol- 
low  jfo  be  a  &meJL(or  anything  else)  is  one  thing,  to  be  known  as  a 

smell,  another;  to  be  a  'feeling'  is  one  thing,  to  be  knoivn  as  a  'feeling' 
is  another.  The  firjst/is  thingKood ;  existence  indubitable,  direct ;  in  this 
way  all  things  are  that  are  in  'consciousness'  at  all.  The  secorjyd  is 
reflected  being,  things  indicating  and  calling  for  other  things— some- 
thing offering  the  possibility  of  truth  and  hence  of  falsity.  The  first  is 
genuine  immediacy;  the  second  (in  the  instance  discussed)  a  pseudo- 
immediacy,  which  in  the  same  breath  that  it  proclaims  its  immediacy 
smuggles  in  another  term  (and  one  which  is  unexperienced  both  in  itself 
and  in  its  relation)  the  subject  of  'consciousness',  to  which  the  imme- 
diate is  related To  be  acquainted  with  a  thing  is  to  be  assured  (from 

the  standpoint  of  the  experience  itself)  that  it  is  of  such  and  such  a 
character ;  that  it  will  behave,  if  given  an  opportunity,  in  such  and  such 
a  way ;  that  the  obviously  and  flagrantly  present  trait  is  associated  with 
fellow  traits  that  will  show  themselves  if  the  leading  of  the  present 


1Mind,   N.    S.    15,  July    1906.      Reprinted   in   "The   Influence   of  Darwin   on   Philosophy 
ami  Other  Essays",  p.   77.      Page  references  are  to  the  latter. 

35 


36  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

trait  is  followed  out./'  To  be  acquainted  is  to  anticipate  to  some  extent, 
on  the  basis  of  previous  experience".\  (pp.  Si,  82). 

./Besides  mere  existence,  there  is  another  type  of  experience  which 
is  often  confused  with  knowledge, — a  type  which  Dewey  calls  the 
'cognitive'  as  distinct  from  genuine  knowledge  or  the  'cognitional'.  In 
this  experience  "we  retrospectively  attribute  intellectual  force  and  func- 
tion to  the  smell".  This  involves  memory  but  not  anticipation.  As  we 
look  back  from  the  enjoyment  of  the  rose,  we  can  say  that  in  a  sense 
the  odor  meant  the  rose,  even  though  it  led  us  here  blindly.  That  is,  if 
the  odor  suggests  the  finding  of  its  cause,  without  specifying  what  the 
cause  is,  and  if  we  then  search  about  and  find  the  rose,  we  can  say  that 
the  odor  meant  the  rose  in  the  sense  that  it  actually  led  to  the  discovery 
of  it.  "Yet  the  sn^ll  was  not  cognitional  because  it  did  not  knowingly 
intend  to  mean  this,  but  is  found,  after  the  event,  to  have  meant 


it",    /p.  84). 
/Now,  "b 


'before  the  category  of  confirmation  or  refutation  can  be 
introduced,  there  must  bespmething  which  means  to  mean  something". 
Let  us  therefore  introduce  a  further  complexity  into  the  illustration. 
Let  us  suppose  that  the  small  occurs  at  a  later  date,  and  is  then  "aware 
of  something  else  which  it  means,  which  it  intends  to  effect  by  an  opera- 
tion incited  by  it  and  without  which  its  own  presence  is  abortive,  and, 
so  to  say,  unjustified,  senseless".  Here  we  have  something  "which  is 
contemporaneously  aware  of  meaning  something  beyond  itself,  instead 
of  having  this  meaning  ascribed  to  it  by  another  at  a  later  period.  The 
knows  the  rose,  the  rose  is  known  b\  the  odor,  and  the  import  of 
each  term  is  constituted  by  the  relationship  in  which  it  stands  to  the 
othei/".  (p.  88).  This  is  the  genuine  'cognitional'  experience. 

'When  the  odor  recurs  'cognitionally',  both  the  odor  and  the  rose 
/  are  present  in  the  same  experience,  though  both  are  not  present  in  the 
{  same  way.  "Things  can  be  presented  as  absent,  just  as  they  can  be 
presented  as  hard  or  soft".  The  enjoyment  of  the  rose  is  present  as 
going  to  be  there  in  the  same  way  that  the  odor  is.  "The  situation  is 
inherently  an  uneasy  one — one  in  which  everything  hangs  upon  the  per- 
formance of  the  operation  indicated  ;  upon  the  adequacy  of  movement 
as  a  connecting  link,  or  real  adjustment  of  the  thing  meaning  and  the 
thing  meant.  Generalizing  from  this  instance,  we  get  the  following 
definition :  /^ui  experience  is  a  knowledge,  if  in  its  quale  there  is  an 
experienced  distinction  and  connection  of  two  elements  of  the  following 
sort :  .one  means  or  intends  the  presence  of  the  other  in  the  same  fashion 
in  whicrTit  itself  is  already  present,  while  the  other  is  that  which,  while 
not  present  in  the  same  fashion,  must  become  present  if  the  meaning 
or  intention  of  its  companion  or  yoke-fellow  is  to  be  fulfilled  through 
the  operation  it  sets  up".  \(p.  90). 


THE  PRAGMATISM  OF  JAA**S  37 

Now/in  the  transformation  from  this  tensional  situation  into  a 
harmonious  situation,  there  is  an  experience  either  of  fulfilment  or  dis- 
appointment.\  If  there  is  a  disappointment  of  expectation,  this  may 
throw  one  back  in  reflection  upon  the  original  situation.  The  smell,  we 
may  say,  seemed  to  mean  a  rose,  yet  it  did  not  in  fact  lead  to  a  rose. 
There  is  something  else  which  enters  in.  We  then  begin  an  investiga- 
tion. "Smells  may  become  the  object  of  knowledge.  They  may  take, 
pro  tempore,  the  place  which  the  rose  formerly  occupied.  One  may, 
that  is,  observe  the  cases  in  which  the  odors  mean  other  things  than 
just  roses,  may  voluntarily  produce  new  cases  for  the  sake  of  further 
inspection;  and  thus  account  for  the  cses  where  meanings  had  been 
falsified  in  the  issue ;  discriminate  more  carefully  the  peculiarities  of 
those  meanings  which  the  event  verified,  and  thus  safeguard  and  bul- 
wark to  some  extent  the  employing  of  similar  meanings  in  the  future", 
(p-  93)-  When  we  reflect  upon  these  fulfilments  or  refusals,,  we  find  in 
them  a  quality  "quite  lacking  to  them  in  their  immediate  occurence  as 
just  fulfilments  and  disappointments", — the  quality  of  affording  assur- 
ance and  correction.  /Truth  and  falsity  are  not  properties  of  any  ex- 
perience or  thing,  in  and  of  itself  or  in  its  first  intention ;  but  of  things 
where  the  problem  c  of  assurance  consciously  enters  in.  Truth  and 
falsity  present  themselves  as  significant  facts  only  in  situations  in  which 
specific  meanings  and  their  already  experienced  fulfilments  and  non-ful- 
filments are  intentionally  compared  and  contrasted  with  reference  to  the 
question  of  the  worth,  as  to  the,  reliability  of  meaning,  of  the  given 
.meaning  or  class  of  meanings.  'Like  knowledge  itself,  truth  is  an  ex- 
perienced relation  of  things,  and  it  has  no  meaning  outside  of  such 
relation"\(p.  95). 

Though  this  paper  is  by  title  a  discussion  of  a  theory  of  knowledge, 
we  may  find  in  this  last  paragraph  a  very  clear  relating  of  the  whole  to 
a  theory  of  Jruth.  If  we  attempt  to  differentiate  in  this  article  between 
knowledge  and^ffuth,  we  find  that  while  Dewey  uses  jmowledge*  tojceier  \/ 
t-ither  to  the  prospective  orjojhej^trospeet^  end  of  tlje  experimental  ' 
experieiiceTT^e"  evidently  intends  to  limit  truth  to  the  retrospective  or 
confirmatory  end  of  the  expene^nce.  When  he  says,  "Truth  and  falsity 
are  not  properties  of  any  experience  or  thing  in  and  of  itself  or  in  its 
first  intention,  but  of  things  where  the  problem  of  assurance  consciously 
enters  in.  Truth  and  falsity  present  themselves  as  significant  facts  only 
in  situations  in_  which  specific  meanings  aiuMheir  already  experienced 
fulfilmentsjire  intentionally  compared  and  contrasted  with  reference  to 
the  question  of  the  worth,  as  to  reliability  of  meaning,  of  the 'given 
meaning  or  class  of  meanings",  it  seems  that  truth  is  to  be  confined  to 


38  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

retrospective  experience.  jrThe  truth  of  an  idea  means  that  it  allows  one 
at  its  fulfilment  to  look  back  at  its  former  meaning  and  think  of  it  as 
now  confirmed)^  The  difference  between  knowledge  and  truth  is  then  a 
difference  in  the  time  at  which  the  developing  experince  is  examined. 
If  one  takes  the  experience  at  the  appearance  Nof  the  knowing  odor,  he 
gets  acquaintance ;  if  one  takes  iut  the  stage  at  which  it  has  developed 
into  a  confirmation,  he  gets  truth.  Knowledge  may  be  either  stage  of 
the  experience  of  verification,  but  truth  is  confined  to  the  later,  con- 
firmatory, stage. 

Truth,  then,  is  simply  a  matter  of  confirmation  of  prediction  or  of 
fulfilment  of  expectation.  An  idea  is  made  true  by  leading  as  it 
promised^  And  an  idea  is  made  false  when  it  leads  to  refutation  of  ex- 
pectation:\  There  seems  to  be  no  necessity  here  for  an  absolute  reality 
ior  the  ideas  to  conform  to,  or  'correspond'  to,  for  truth  is  a  certian 
kind  of  relation  between  the  ideas  themselves — the  relation,  namely,  of 
leading  to  fulfilment  of  expectations^ 

CONTRAST  BETWEEN  JAMES  AND  DEWEV. 

If,  now,  we  wish  to  bring  out  the  difference  between  the  account 
of  truth  which  we  have  just  examined  and  the  account  that  is  given  by 
James,  we  will  find  the  distinction  quite  evident.  Truth,  for  Dewey,  is 
that  relation  which  arises  when,  at  an  experience  of  fulfilment,  one  looks 
back  to  the  former  experience  and  thinks  of  its  leading  as  now  con- 
firmed. An  idea  is  true,  therefore,  when  we  can  refer  back  to  it  in  this 
way  and  say,  "That  pointing  led  me  to  this  experience,  as  it  said  it 
would".  The  pointing,  by  bringing  a  fulfilment,  is  made  true — at  this 
point  of  confirmation  it  becomes  true. 

Since  a  true  idea  is  defined,  then,  as  one  which  leads  as  it  promised, 
it  is  obvious  that  truth  will  not  be  concerned  in  any  way  with  incidental 
or  accidental  values  which  might  be  led  to  by  the  idea.  It  has  no  relation 
to  whether  the  goal  is  ^cvorth  while  being  led  to  or  not.  James  speaks 
of  truth  as  a  leading  that  is  worth  while.  For  Dewey  the  goal  may  be 
valuable,  useless,  or  even  pernicious, — these  are  entirely  irrelevant  to 
truth,  which  is  determined  solely  by  the  fact  that  the  idea  leads  as  it 
promised\ 

The  existence  of  this  distinction  was  pointed  out,  after  the  ap- 
pearance of  James'  "Pragmatism",  by  Dewey  himself.1  After  a  careful 
discussion  of  some  other  points  of  difference,  he  says  of  this  matter  of 
the  place  of  the  value  of  an  udea  in  reference  to  its  truth :  "We  have 


ll'What    Does    Pragmatism    Mean    by    Practical?",    Journal    of    Philosophy,    etc.,    1908, 
v.   5,  P-   85. 


THE  PRAGMATISM   OF  j  *  ™^  39 

the  theory  that  ideas  as  ideas  are  always  working  hypotheses  concerning 
attaining  particular  empirical  results,  and  are  tentative  programs  (or 
sketches  of  method)  for  attaining  them.  If  we  stick  consistently  to  this 
notion  of  ideas,  only  consequences  which  are  actually  produced  by  the 
working  of  the  idea  in  cooperation  with,  or  application  to,  prior  realities 
are  good  consequences  in  the  specific  sense  of  good  which  is  relevant  to 
establishing  the  truth  of  an  idea.  This  is,  at  times,  unequivocally 

recognized  by  Mr.  James But  at  other  times  any  good  that  flows 

from  acceptance  of  a  belief  is  treated  as  if  it  were  an  evidence,  in  so  far, 
of  the  truth  of  the  idea.  This  holds  particularly  when  theological  notions 
are  under  consideration.  Light  would  be  thrown  upon  how  Mr.  James 
conceives  this  matter  by  statements  from  him  on  such  points  as  these : 
If  ideas  terminate  in  good  consequences,  but  yet  the  goodness  of  the 
consequence  was  no  part  of  the  intention  of  the  idea,  does  the  goodness 
have  any  verifying  force?  If  the  goodness  of  consequences  arises  from 
the  context  of  the  idea  rather  than  from  the  idea  itself,  does  it  have 
any  verifying  force?  If  an  idea  leads  to  consequences  which  are  good 
in  the  one  respect  only  of  fulfilling  the  intent  of  the  idea,  (as  when  one 
drinks  a  liquid  to  test  the  idea  that  it  is  a  poison),  does  the  badness  of 
the  consequences  in  every  other  respect  detract  from  the  verifying  force 
of  these  consequences  ? 

"Since  Mr.  James  has  referred  to  me  as  saying  'truth  is  what  gives 

satisfaction'  (p.  234),  I  may  remark that  I  never  identified  any 

satisfaction  with  the  truth  of  an  idea,  save  that  satisfaction  which  arises 
when  the  idea  as  working  hypothesis  or  tentative  method  is  applied  to 
prior  existences  in  such  a  way  as  to  fulfil  what  it  intends 

"When  he  says of  the  idea  of  an  absolute,  'so  far  as  it  affords 

such  comfort  it  surely  is  not  sterile,  it  has  that  amount  of  value ;  it  per- 
forms a  concrete  function.  As  a  good  pragmatist  I  ought  to  call  the 
absolute  true  in  so  far  forth  then ;  and  I  unhesitatingly  now  do  so',  the 
doctrine  seems  to  be  unambiguous:  that  any  good,  consequent  upon 
acceptance  of  belief,  is,  in  so  far  forth,  a  warrant  for  truth.  Of  course 

Mr.  James  holds  that  this  'in  so  far'  goes  a  very  small  way But  even 

the  slightest  concession,  is,  I  think,  non-pragmatic  unless  the  satisfac- 
tion is  relevant  to  the  idea  as  intent.  Now  the  satisfaction  in  question 
comes  not  from  the  idea  as  idea,  but  from  its  acceptance  as  true.  Can  a 
satisfaction  dependent  upon  an  assumption  that  an  idea  is  already  true 
be  relevant  to  testing  the  truth  of  an  idea?  And  can  an  idea,  like  that 
of  the  absolute,  which,  if  true,  'absolutely'  precludes  any  appeal  to 
consequences  as  test  of  truth,  be  confirmed  by  use  of  the  pragmatic  test 
without  sheer  self-contradiction"  ?'  "An  explicit  statement  as  to  whether 

last  four  sentences  appear  in  a   footnote. 


40  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

the  carrying  function,  the  linking  of  things,  is  satisfactory  and  pros- 
perous and  hence  true  in  so  far  as  it  executes  the  intent  of  the  idea ;  or 
whether  the  satisfaction  and  prosperity  reside  in  the  material  conse- 
quences on  their  own  account  and  in  that  aspect  make  the  idea  true, 
would,  I  am  sure,  locate  the  point  at  issue  and  economize  and  fructify 
future  discussion.  At  present  pragmatism  is  accepted  by  those  whose 
own  notions  are  thoroughly  rationalistic  in  make-up  as  a  means  of  re- 
furbishing, galvanizing,  and  justifying  those  very  notions.  It  is  rejected 
by  non-rationalists  (empiricists  and  naturalistic  idealists)  because  it 
seems  to  them  identified  with  the  notion  that  pragmatism  holds  that  the 
desirability  of  certain  beliefs  overrides  the  question  of  the  meaning  of 
the  idea  involved  in  them  and  the  existence  of  objects  denoted  by  them. 
Others  (like  myself)  who  believe  thoroughly  in  pragmatism  as  a  method 
of  orientation  as  defined  by  Mr.  James,  and  who  would  apply  the  method 
to  the  determination  of  the  meaning  of  objects,  the  intent  and  worth  of 
ideas  as  ideax^and  to  the  human  and  moral  value  of  beliefs,  when  these 
problems  are  carefully  distinguished  from  one  another,  do  not  know 
whether  they  are  pragmatists  or  not,  because  they  are  not  sure  whether 
the  'practical',  in  the  sense  of  the  desirable  facts  which  define  the  worth 
of  a  belief,  is  confused  with  the  practical  as  an  attitude  imposed  by 
objects,  and  with  the  practical  as  a  power  and  function  of  idea  to  effect 
changes  in  prior  existences.  Hence  the  importance  of  knowing  what 

pragmatism  means  by  practical 

"I  would  do  Mr.  James  an  injustice,  however,  to  stop  here.  His : 
real  doctrine,  I  think,  is  that  a  belief  is  true  when  it  satisfies  both  the 
personal  needs  and  the  requirements  of  objective  things.  Speaking  of 
pragmatism,  he  says,  'Her  only  test  of  probable  truth  is  what  works  best 
in  the  way  of  leading  us,  what  fits  every  part  of  life  best  and  combines 
with  the  collectivity  of  experiences  demands,  nothing  being  omitted'. 
And  again,  'That  new  idea  is  truest  which  performs  most  felicitously  its 
function  of  satisfying  our  double  urgency',  (p.  64).  It  does  not  appear 
certain  from  the  context  that  this  'double  urgency'  is  that  of  the  personal 

and  the  objective  demands,  but  it  is  probable On  this  basis,  the  'in 

so  far  forth'  of  the  truth  of  the  absolute  because  of  the  comfort  it  sup- 
plies, means  that  one  of  the  two  conditions  which  need  to  be  satisfied 
has  been  met,  so  that  if  the  absolute  met  the  other  one  also  it  would  be 
quite  true.  I  have  no  doubt  that  his  is  Mr.  James'  meaning,  and  it 
sufficiently  safeguards  him  from  charges  that  pragmatism  means  that 
anything  that  is  agreeable  is  true.  At  the  same  time,  I  do  not  think,  in 
logical  strictness,  that  satisfying  one  of  two  tests,  when  satisfaction  of 
both  is  required,  can  be  said  to  constitute  a  belief  true  even  'in  so  far 
forth". 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


45 


THE  WORKS  OF  WILLIAM   JAMES 
A   "List  of   the   Published   Writings   of   William  James"   will   be   found   in   the 
sychological  Review  for  March  ign,  v.  18,  p.  157. 


THE  WORKS  OF  JOHN  DEWEY 


On  Logic  and  Metaphysics: 

1882.  The    metaphysical    assumptions    of    mater- 

ialism. 
The  pantheism  of  spinoza. 

1883.  Knowledge  and  the  relativity  of  feeling. 

1884.  Kant  and  philosophic  method. 

1886.  The  psychological  standpoint. 
Psychology  as  philosophic  method. 

1887.  "Illusory  psychology," 
Knowledge  as  idealization. 

1888.  Leibniz's  New  Essays  Concerning  Human 

Understanding. 

1890.  On   some   current   conceptions   of  the  term 

'self, 

1891.  The  present  position  of  logical  theory. 

1892.  The  superstition  of  necessity. 

1894.  The  ego  as  cause. 

1895.  Interest  as  Related  To  Will. 
1900.  Some  stages  of  logical  thought. 

1903.  Logical    Conditions    of    a    Scientific    Treat- 

ment of  Morality. 
(And  others)     Studies  in  Logical  Theory. 

1904.  Notes  upon  logical  topics. 

1 — A  classification  of  contemporary  tend- 
encies. 
II — The  meaning  of  the  term  idea. 

1905.  Immediate  empiricism. 

The  knowledge  experience  and  its  relation- 
ships. 

The  knowledge  experience  again. 
The  postulate  of  immediate  empiricism. 
The  realism  of  pragmatism. 

1906.  Reality  as  experience. 

The  terms  'conscious'  and  'consciousness'. 

Beliefs  and  realities. 

Experience  and  objective  idealism. 

The  experimental  theory  of  knowledge. 

1907.  The  control  of  ideas  by  facts. 

Pure  experience  and  reality:  a  disclaimer. 
Reality  and  the  criterion  for  truth  of  ideas. 

1908.  What  does  pragmatism  mean  by  practical  ? 
Logical  character  of  ideas. 

1909.  Objects,  data,  and  existence:    Reply  to  Pro- 

fessor McGilvary. 

Dilemma  of  the  intellectualistic  theory  of 
truth. 
Darwin's  influence  on  philosophy. 

1910.  Some  implications  of  anti-intellectualism. 
Short  cuts  to  realism  examined. 


Jour.  Spec.  Phil.  16:208. 
Jour.  Spec.  Phil.  16:249. 
Jour.  Spec.  Phil.  17:56. 
Jour.  Spec.  Phil.  18:162. 
Mind  11:1. 
Mind  11:153. 
Mind  12:83. 
Mind  12:382. 


Mind  15:58. 
Monist  2:1. 
Monist  3:362. 
Phil.  Rev.  3:337. 

Phil.  Rev.  9:465. 


Jour.  Phil.  1:57. 
Jour.  Phil.  1:175. 
Jour.  Phil.  2:597. 

Jour.  Phil.  2:652. 
Jour.  Phil.  2:707. 
Jour.  Phil.  2:393. 
Jour.  Phil.  2:324. 
Jour.  Phil.  3:253. 
Jour.  Phil.  3:39. 
Phil.  Rev.  15:113. 
Phil.  Rev.  15:465. 
Mind.  15:293. 
Jour.  Phil.  4:197,253,309. 
Phil.  Rev.  16:419. 
Mind  15:317. 
Jour.  Phil.  5:85. 
Jour.  Phil.  5:375. 

Jour.  Phil.  6:13. 

Jour.  Phil.  6:433. 
Pop.  Sci.  Mo.  75:90. 
Jour.  Phil.  7:4777 
Jour.  Phil.  7:553. 


46 


THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 


Valid  knowledge  and  the  subjectivity  of  ex- 

perience. 

Science  as  subject-matter  and  as  method. 
How  We  Think. 
Influence    of    Darwin    on    Philosophy,    and 

Other  Essays. 

1911.  Rejoinder  to  Dr.  Spaulding. 
Brief  studies  in  realism. 

Joint  discussion  with  Dr.  Spaulding. 

1912.  Reply  to  Professor  McGilvary's  questions. 
In  response  to  Professor  McGilvary. 
Perception  and  organic  action. 

Reply  to  Professor  Royce's  critique  of  in- 
strumentalism. 


On  Psychology,  Ethics,  Education,  etc.: 

1890.  Moral  theory  and  practice. 

1891.  Psychology. 

Outline  of  a  Critical  Theory  of  Ethics. 

1892.  Green's  theory  of  the  moral  motive. 

1893.  Teaching  ethics  in  high  school. 
Self-realization  as  the  moral  ideal. 

1894.  The  psychology  of  infant  language. 
The  theory  of  emotion. 

I  —  Emotional  attitudes. 

1895.  II  —  The  significance  of  the  emotions. 

1896.  The  metaphysical  method  in  ethics. 
The  reflex  arc  concept  in  psychology. 
Influence  of  the  high  school  upon  educational 

methods. 

1897.  The  psychology  of  effort. 

(And  J.  A.  McLellan)  Psychology  of  Num- 
ber and  its  Application  to  Methods  of 
Teaching  Arithmetic. 

Evolution  and  ethics. 

Psychological  aspects  of  school  curriculums. 

1898.  Some  remarks  on  the  psychology  of  number. 
W.  T.  Harris's  Psychological  Foundation  of 

Education. 
Social  interpretations. 

1900.  Psychology  and  social  practice. 

1901.  Psychology  and  Social  Practice. 

Are  the  schools  doing  what  the  people  want 

them  to  do? 
The  situation  as  regards  the  course  of  study. 

1902.  The    evolutionary    method    as    applied    to 

morality. 

I  —  Its  scientific  necessity. 

II  —  Its  significance  for  conduct. 
Interpretation  of  the  savage  mind. 
Academic  freedom. 

Problems  in  secondary  education. 

Syllabus  of  courses. 

The  school  as  a  social  center. 

1903.  Emerson:   The  philosopher  of  democracy. 
Shortening  the  years  of  elementary  school- 

ing. 

The  psychological  and  the  logical  in  teach- 
ing geometry. 


Jour.   Phil.   7:169. 
Science  n.  s.  31:121. 


Jour.  Phil.  8:77 
Jour.  Phil.  8:393,546. 
Jour.  Phil.  8:574. 
Jour.  Phil.  9:19. 
Jour.  Phil.  9:544. 
Jour.  Phil.  9:645. 

Phil.  Rev.  21:69. 


Int.  Jour.  Ethics  1:186. 


Phil.  Rev.  1:593. 
Ed.  Rev.  6:313. 
Phil.  Rev.  2:652. 
Psy.  Rev.  1:63. 

Psy.  Rev.  1:553. 
Psy.  Rev.  2:13. 
Psy.  Rev.  3:181. 
Psy.  Rev.  3:357. 

Ed.  Rev.  4:1. 
Phil.  Rev.  6:43. 


Monist  8:321. 
Ed.  Rev.  13:356. 
Ped.  Sem.  5:426. 
Ed.  Rev.  16:1. 

Phil.  Rev.  7:631. 
Psy.  Rev.  7:105. 


Ed.  Rev.  21:459. 
Ed.  Rev.  22:26. 


Phil.  Rev.  11:107. 

Phil.  Rev.  11:353. 

Psy.  Rev.  9:217. 

Ed.  Rev.  23:1. 

Sch.  Rev.  19:13. 

El.  Sch.  73:200. 

El.  Sch.  73:563. 

Int.  Jour.  Ethics  13:405. 

Sch.  Rev.  11:17. 
Ed.  Rev.  25:386. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1904.  The  philosophical  work  of  Herbert  Spencer. 

1906.  Culture  and  industry  in  education. 
The  Educational  Situation. 

1907.  The  life  of  reason. 

1908.  (And  Tufts)  Ethics. 
Religion  and  our  schools. 

1909.  Is  nature  good  ? 

Moral  Principles  in  Education. 

1910.  How  We  Think. 
William  James. 

1911.  Is  coeducation  injurious  to  girls? 
Maeterlinck's  philosophy  of  life. 

1913.  Interest  and  Effort  in  Education. 
An  undemocratic  proposal. 
Industrial  education  and  democracy. 

1914.  Report    on    the    Fairhope     experiment    in 

organic  education. 

National  policy  of  industrial  education. 
Nature  and  reason  in  law. 


47 


Phil.  Rev.  13:159. 
Ed.  Bi-Monthly  1:1, 

Ed.  Rev.  34:116. 

Hib.  Jour.  6:796. 
Hib.  Jour.  7:827. 


Jour.  Phil.  7:505. 

Ladies  Home  Jour.  28:22. 

Hib.  Jour.  9:765. 

Vocational  Ed.  2:374. 
Survey  29:870. 

Survey  32:199. 
New  Republic,  v.  I. 
Int.  Jour.  Eth.  25:25. 


WORKS  ON   TRUTH 
(See  also  the  list  under   'Pragmatism'). 

1624.  Herbert  de  Clerbury,  E. — De  Veritate  Prout  Distinguitur  a  Revelatione,  a 

Possibiliti  et  a  Falso. 

1674.  Malbranche,  N. — De  la  Recherche  de  la  Verite. 
1690.  Locke,  J. — Essay  Concerning  the  Human   Understanding. 

1780.  Beattie,  James. — An   Essay  on  the   Nature   and   Immutability  of  Truth. 

1781.  Kant,  Im. — Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft. 

1780.  Beattie,  James. — An  Essay  on  the  Nature  and  Immutability  of  Truth. 

1800.  Kant,  Im.— Logik. 

1811.  Fries,  J.— System  der  Logik,  p.  448  ff. 

1817.  Hegel,  F.— Encyclopadie.     Sec.  21. 

1826.  Hume,  D. — Treatise  on  Human  Nature,  iv,  sec.  2. 

1842.  Thomson,  W. — Outlines  of  the  Necessary  Laws  of  Thought. 

1840.  Abercombie,  J. — An  Inquiry  Concerning  the  Intellectual  Powers  and  the 

Investigation  of  Truth. 

1854.  Bailey,  — , — Essays  on  the  Pursuit  of  Truth. 
1862.  Tiberghien,  G.— Logique,  v.  2,  pp.  322-355. 
1866.  Hamilton,  Sir  Wm.— Logic.  Lectures  28-31. 
1875.  Forster,  W.— Wahrheit  und  Wahrschleinlichkeit. 

1877.  Jevons,  W.  S. — The  Principles  of  Science.     2nd  ed.,  pp.  374-396. 

1878.  Schuppe,  W.— Logik.    v.  1,  pp.  622-696. 
1880.  Wundt,  W.— Logik. 

1882.  Bergmann,  J. — Die  Grundprobleme  der  Logik.     p.  96ff. 

1884.  Schulbert-Soldern,  R.  von. — Grundlagen  einer  Erkenntnisstheorie.     p.  156ff. 

1885.  Royce,  J. — The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy. 

1889.  Argyle,  Duke  of— What  Is  Truth  ? 
Stephen,   L. — On   some   kinds   of   necessary 

truth.  Mind  14:50,188. 

1890.  Carus,  Paul— The  criterion  of  truth.  Monist  1:229. 

1892.  Rickert,  H. — Der  Gegenstand  der  Erkennt- 

niss.    Freib.  pp.  63-64. 

1893.  Bradley,    F.    H.— Appearance    and    Reality. 

Chapters  16,  24. 
Cousin,  Victor — Lectures  on  the  True,  the 

Beautiful,  and  the  Good. 
Soyen,  Shakn — Universality  of  truth.  Monist  4:161. 


THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 


Miller,   D.   S. — The   meaning   of  truth   and 

error. 
Smith,  W.— Certitude. 

1894.  Gordy,  J.  P.— The  test  of  belief. 

1895.  Jerusalem,  W. — Die  Urteilsfunction.  p.  185ff. 
Bosanquet,    B. — Essentials    of    Logic,      pp. 

69-79. 
Sigwart,  C.— Logic,    v.  1,  pp.  295-326. 

1896.  Hodder,  A. — Truth  and  the  tests  of  truth. 
Wundt,    W. — Ueber   naiven    und    kritischen 

Realismus. 

1897.  Brochard,  Victor— De  L'Erreur. 
Jordan,  D.  S.— The  stability  of  truth. 
Striimpell,   Ludw. — Unterchiede   der  Wahr- 

heiten  und  irrtiimer.    p.  58. 

1898.  Baillie,  J.  B. — Truth  and  history. 
Powell,  J.  W.— Truth  and  Error. 

1899.  Eisler,  W.— Worterbuch  der  philosophischen 

Begriffe. 

1900.  Sidgwick,  H. — Criteria  of  truth  and  error. 

1901.  Creighton,  J.  E. — Methodology  and  truth. 
French,  F.  C.— The  doctrine  of  the  twofold 

truth. 

Royce,  J. — The  World  and  the  Individual. 
Smyth,  J. — Truth  and  Reality. 

1902.  Baldwin,  J.   M. — Development    and    Evolu- 

tion.   Chapter  17. 

Pritchett,       —What  is  truth  ? 

1903.  Duprat,  Guillaume  L. — Le  Mesonge.    Etude 

de      psycho-sociologie      pathologique      et 
normale. 
Pilate's  What  is  truth. 

1904.  Bradley,  F.  H.— On  truth  and  practice. 
Glasenapp,  G.  v.— Der  Wert  der  Wahrheit. 

Rogers,  A.  K. — James  on  humanism  and 
truth. 

1905.  Alexander,  H.  B. — Phenomenalism  and  the 

problem  of  knowledge. 

Alexander,  H.  B. — Quantity,  quality,  and 
the  function  of  knowledge. 

Hyslop,  J.  H. — Problems  of  Philosophy. 
Chapter  7. 

Joachim,  H.  H. — 'Absolute'  and  'relative' 
truth. 

Joseph,  H.  W.  B. — Professor  James  on  'hu- 
manism and  truth'. 

Knox,  H.  V. — Mr.  Bradley's  absolute  criter- 
ion. 

Overstreet,  H.  A. — Conceptual  completeness 
and  abstract  truth. 

Pitkin,  W.  B. — Psychology  of  eternal  truths. 

Taylor,  A.  E. — Truth  and  practice. 

1906.  Gore,  George — Scientific  sketch  of  untruth. 
Russell,  B.— The  nature  of  truth. 
Review  of  Joachim's  The  Nature  of  Truth. 
Schiller,  F.  C.  S. — The  ambiguity  of  truth. 
Schiller,  F.  C.  S.— Joachim's  The  Nature  of 

Truth. 


Phil.  Rev.  2:408. 
Phil.  Rev.  2:665. 
Phil.  Rev.  3:257. 


Phil.  Rev.  5:1. 

Phil.  Studien  12:332. 

Pop.  Sci.  Mo.  4:642,  749. 

Mind  7:506. 


Mind  9:8. 

Phil.  Rev.   10:408. 

Phil.  Rev.  10:477. 


Outlook  70:620. 


Catholic  World  77:705. 
Mind  13:309. 

Zeitsch.  f.   Philos.  u.  phil. 

Kr.   123:186,  124:25. 

Jour.   Phil.   1:693. 
Jour.  Phil.  2:182. 
Jour.  Phil.  2:459. 


Mind  14:1. 
Mind  14:28. 
Mind  14:210. 

Phil.  Rev.  14:308. 
Jour.  Phil.  2:449. 
Phil.    Rev.    14:265. 
Monist  16:96. 
Mind  15:528. 
Nation  83:42. 
Mind  15:161. 

Jour.  Phil.  3:549. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Taylor,  A.  E. — Truth  and  consequences. 
Openmindedness. 

1908.  Bakewell,  C.  M.— On  the  meaning  of  truth. 
Creighton,  J.  E. — The  nature  and  criterion 

of  truth. 

Gardiner,  H.  N. — The  problems  of  truth. 
Moore,  A.  W.— Truth  value. 
Prat,  J.  B.— Truth  and  ideas. 
Urbana,  F.  M. — On  a  supposed  criterion  of 
the  absolute  truth  of  some  propositions. 

1909.  Bradley,  F.  H.— On  truth  and  coherence. 
Bradley,  F.  H. — Coherence  and  contradiction. 
Buckham,  J.  W. — Organization  of  truth. 
Carritt,  E.  F. — Truth  in  art  and  religion. 
Knox,  H.  V. — The  evolution  of  truth. 

1910.  Alexander,  H.  B. — Truth  and  nature. 
Boodin,  J.  E.— The  nature  of  truth. 
Bradley,  F.  H. — On  appearance,  error,  and 

contradiction. 
Jacobson,    Edmund — Relational   account    of 

truth. 
Russell,  B. — Philosophical  Essays.     Essays 

5,  6,  7. 

Schmidt,  Karl — Hertz's  theory  of  truth. 
Tsanoff,  R.  A. — Professor    Boodin    on    the 

nature  of  truth. 
Plea  for  the  half-truth. 
Truth  as  once  for  all  delivered. 

1911.  Alexander,  H.  B. — Goodness  and  beauty  of 

truth. 

Boodin,  J.  E. — The  divine  five-fold  truth. 

Boodin,  J.  E. — The  nature  of  truth:  a  reply. 

Boodin,  J.  E.— Truth  and  Reality. 

Bradley,  F.  F. — On  some  aspects  of  truth. 

Carus,  Paul— Truth  on  Trial. 

McGilvary,  E.  B.— The  'fringe'  of  William 
James's  psychology  as  the  basis  of  logic. 

Rother,  A.  J. — Certitude. 

Royce,  J. — William  James,  and  Other  Es- 
says. 

Self-sufficiency  of  truth. 

1912.  Fawcett,  E.  D.— Truth's  'original  object'. 
Larson,  C.  D. — What  Is  Truth? 

Leuba,  J.  H. — Religion  and  the  discovery  of 

truth. 

Review  of  Jordan's  Stability  of  Truth. 
Zahlf eisch,  Johann — 1st  die  Liige  erlaubt  ? 

1913.  Alexander,  S. — Collective  willing  and  truth. 
Gerould,  K.  F. — Boundarie  of  truth. 
Lloyd,  A.  H. — Conformity,  consistency,  and 

truth. 
Moore,  A.  W. — The  aviary  theory  of  truth 

and  error. 

Wright,  W.  K. — Genesis  of  the  categories. 
Wright,  W.  K. — Practical    success    as    the 

criterian  of  truth. 

1914.  Bowman,  A.  A. — The  problem  of  knowledge 

from  the  standpoint  of  validity. 


49 


Mind  15:81. 

Catholic  World  82:756. 

Phil.  Rev.  17:579. 

Phil.  Rev.  17:592. 
Phil.  Rev.  17:113. 
Jour.  Phil.  5:429. 
Jour.  Phil.  5:122. 

Jour.   Phil.   5:701. 
Mind  18:322. 
Mind  18:489. 
Int.  Jour.  Eth.  20:63. 
Hib.  Jour.  8:362. 
Quarterly  Rev.  No.  419. 
Monist  20:585. 
Phil.  Rev.  19:395. 

Mind  19:153. 
Jour.  Phil.  7:253. 


Monist  20:445. 

Phil.  Rev.  19:632. 
Atlantic  105:576. 
Bib.  World  35:219. 

Jour.  Phil.  5:29. 
Monist  21:288. 
Phil.  Rev.  20:59. 

Mind  20:305. 


Phil.  Rev.  20:137. 


Bib.  World  37:147. 
Mind  21:89. 


Jour.  Phil.  9:406. 
Int.  Jour.  Eth.  23:92. 
Archiv.  f.  system. 
Philos.  18:241. 
Mind  22:14,161. 
Atlantic  112:454. 

Jour.  Phil.  10:281. 

Jour.  Phil.  10:542. 
Jour.    Phil.    10:645. 

Phil.  Rev.  22:606. 
Phil.  Rev.  23:1,146,299. 


50  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

Bradley,  F.  H.— Essays  on  Truth  and  Real- 
ity. 

Broad,  C.  D. — Mr.  Bradley  on  truth  and 

reality.  Mind  23:349. 

Capron,  F.  H. — Anatomy  of  Truth. 

Leighton,  J.  A. — Truth,  reality,  and  relation.    Phil.  Rev.  23:17. 

Rother,  A.  J.— Truth  and  Error. 

Sidgwick,  A. — Truth  and  working.  Mind  23:99. 

Strange,  E.  H. — Objectives,  truth,  and  er- 
ror. Mind  23:489. 


WORKS  ON  PRAGMATISM 

(See  also  the  list  under  Truth'). 

1900.  Caldwell,  W. — Pragmatism.  Mind  9:433. 

1902.  Schiller,  F.  C.  S.— 'Useless'  knowledge.  Mind  11:196. 
Schiller,  F.  C.  S.— Axioms  As  Postulates. 

1903.  King,  Irving — Pragmatism  as  a  philosophi- 

cal method.  Phil.  Rev.  12:511. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S. — Humanism:  Philosophi- 
cal Essays. 

1904.  Bawden,  Heath — What  is  pragmatism?  Jour.  Phil.  1:421. 
Creighton,  J  E. — Purpose  as  a  logical  cate- 
gory. Phil.  Rev.   13:284. 

Leighton,  J.  A. — Pragmatism.  Jour.  Phil.  1:148. 

1905.  Bode,  B.  H. — Pure  experience  and  the  ex- 

ternal world.  Jour.  Phil.  2:128. 

Bode,  B.  H. — The  cognitive  experience  and 

its  object.  Jour.  Phil.  2:658. 

Bode,  B.  H. — The  concept  of  pure  exper- 
ience. Phil.  Rev.  14:684. 

Hoernle,  R.  F.  A. — Pragmatism  versus  ab- 
solutism. Mind  14:297,441. 

King,  Irving — Pragmatic  interpretation  of 

the  Christian  dogma.  Monist  15:248. 

Moore,  A.  W. — Pragmatism  and  its  critics.        Phil.  Rev.  14:284. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S.— The  definition  of  'prag- 
matism' and  'humanism'.  Mind  14:235. 

1906.  Bode,  B.  H.— Realism  and  pragmatism.  Jour.  Phil.  3:393. 
Colvin,  S.  S. — Pragmatism,  old  and  new.  Monist  16:547. 
Rogers,  A.  K. — Professor  James'  theory  of 

knowledge.  Phil.  Rev.   15:577. 

Rousmaniere,  F.  H. — A  definition  of  experi- 
mentation. Jour.  Phil.  3:673. 
Russell,   J.    E. — Pragmatism's    meaning    of 

truth.  Jour.  Phil.  3:599. 

Russell,   J.    E. — Some    difficulties   with    the 

epistemology  of  pragmatism  and  radical 

empiricism.  Phil.  Rev.  15:406. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S. — Pragmatism  and  pseudo- 
pragmatism. 
Sturt,  H. — Idola  Theatri,  a  Criticism  of  Ox-    Mind  15:375. 

ford    Thought    and    Thinkers    from    the 

Standpoint  of  Personal  Idealism. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Vailati,  Giovanni  —  Pragmatism  and  mathe- 

matical logic. 
1907.  Brown,  W.  A.  —  Pragmatic  value  of  the  ab- 

solute 
Bush,    W.    T.  —  Papini    on    Introduzione    al 

prafmatismo. 

Foster,  G.  B.  —  Pragmatism  and  knowledge. 
Moore,  A.  W.  —  Perry  on  pragmatism. 
Nichols,  H.  —  Pragmatism  versus  science. 
Papini,  G.  —  What  pragmatism  is  like. 
Perry,  R.  B.  —  A  review  of  pragmatism  as  a 

philosophical  generalization. 
Perry,  R.  B.  —  A  review  of  pragmatism  as  a 

theory  of  knowledge. 
Pratt,  J.  B.  —  Truth  and  its  verification. 
Review  of  Schiller's  Humanism. 
Review  of  Papini's  Tragico  Quotidiano. 
Reviews  of  James's  Pragmatism. 


Schiller,  F.  C.  S. — The  pragmatic  babe  in 
the  woods. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S.— Cure  of  doubt. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S. — Pragmatism  versus  skep- 
ticism. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S. — Studies  in  Humanism. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S. — Review  of  James's  Prag- 
matism. 

Sellars,  R.  W. — Dewey's  view  of  agreement. 

Shorey,  P. — Equivocation  of  pragmatism. 

Slosson,  E.  E. — What  is  pragmatism? 

Talbot,  Ellen  B.— The  philosophy  of  Fichte 
in  its  relation  to  pragmatism. 

Fascination  of  the  pragmatic  method. 

A  new  philosophy. 

The  newest  philosophy. 

Pragmatic  philosophy. 

Pragmatism,  a  new  philosophy. 

Where  pragmatism  fails. 

1908.  Armstrong,    A.    C. — Evolution    of    pragma- 
tism. 

Bawden,    H.     H. — New    philosophy    called 
pragmatism. 

Bradley,  F.  H. — On  the  ambiguity  of  prag- 
matism. 

Burke,   J.    B. — Fashionable     philosophy     at 
Oxford  and  Harvard. 

Bush,  W.  T. — Provisional  and  eternal  truth. 

Carus,  Paul — Pragmatism. 

Hebert,  M. — Le  Pragmatisme.   Etude  de  ses 
Diverse  Formes. 

Hibben,  J.  B. — The  test  of  pragmatism. 

Lovejoy,  A.  O. — Thirteen  pragmatisms. 

Lovejoy,  A.  0. — Pragmatism  and  theology. 

McGilvary,    E.    B. — British     exponents     of 
pragmatism. 


Monist    16:481. 
Jour.  Phil.  4:459. 

Jour.  Phil.  4:639. 
Am.  Jour.  Theol.  11:591. 
Jour.  Phil.  4:567. 
Jour.  Phil.  4:122. 
Pop.  Sci.  Mo.  71:351. 

Jour.  Phil.  4:421. 

Jour.  Phil.  4:365. 
Jour.  Phil.  4:320. 
Nation  84:436. 
Nation  85:521. 
Bookman  26:215. 
No.  Am.  185:884. 
Science  n.  s.  26:464. 
Nation  85:57. 
Ind.  63:630. 

Jour.  Phil.  4:42. 
Jour.   Phil.   4:235. 

Jour.  Phil.  4:482. 


Mind  16:593. 
Jour.  Phil.  4:432. 
Dial  43:273. 
Ind.  62:422. 

Phil  Rev,  16:488. 
Cur.  Lit.  43:186. 
Harper's  W.  51:1264. 
Cur.  Lit.  42:652. 
Ind.  62:797. 
Ed.  Rev.  34:227. 
Cur.  Lit.  46:415. 

Jour.  Phil.  5:645. 
Pop.  Sci.  Mo.  73:61. 
Mind  17:226. 

Liv.  Age  257:559. 
Jour.  Phil.  5:181. 
Monist  18:321. 


Phil.  Rev.  17:365. 
Jour.  Phil.  5:5,29. 
Am.  Jour.  Theol.  12:116. 

Hib.  Jour.  6:632. 


THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 


McTaggart,  J.  E. — Review  of  James's  Prag- 
matism. 

Salter,  W.  M. — A.  new  philosophy. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S.— Is  Mr.  Bradley  a  prag- 
matism ? 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S. — British  exponents  of 
pragmatism. 

Schinz,  A. — Dewey's  pragmatism. 

Sidgwick,  A — The  ambiguity  of  pragmatism. 

Strong,  A.  L. — Religious  aspects  of  pragma- 
tism. 

Strong,  C.  A. — Pragmatism  and  its  defini- 
tion of  truth. 

Vialiti,  G. — A  pragmatic  zoologist. 
1909.  Agnew,  P.  G. — What  is  pragmatism  ? 

Carus,  Paul — A  German  critic  of  pragma- 
tism. 

Carus,  Paul — A  postscript  on  pragmatism. 

Carus,  Paul — Professor  John  Hibben  on  'the 
test  of  pragmatism'. 

Corrance,  H.  C. — Review  of  Hebert's  Le 
Pragmatisme. 

Cox,  J.  W. — Concepts  of  truth  and  reality. 

Huizinga,  A.  V. — The  American  philosophy 
pragmatism. 

Kallen,  H.  M. — Affiliations  of  pragmatism. 

Kallen,  H.  M. — Dr.  Montague  and  the  prag- 
matic notion  of  value. 

Knox,  H.  V. — Pragmatism:  the  evolution  of 
truth. 

Ladd,  G.  T. — The  confusion  of  pragmatism. 

McGilvary,  E.  B. — British  exponents  of 
pragmatism  (A  rejoinder). 

Montague,  W-  P- — The  true,  the  good,  and 
the  beautiful  from  a  pragmatic  stand- 
point. 

Montague,  W.  P. — May  a  realist  be  a  prag- 
matist  ? 

Moore,  A.  W. — "Anti-pragmatisme." 

Moore,  T.  V. — Pragmatism  of  William 
James. 

Moore,  A.  W. — Pragmatism  and  solipsism. 

More,  P.  E. — New  stage  of  pragmatism. 

Murray,  D.  L. — Pragmatic  realism. 

Pratt,  J.  B.— What  Is  Pragmatism  ? 

Pratt,  J.  B.  What  is  pragmatism? 

Schiller,  F.  C  S. — Humanism  and  intuition. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S. — Logic  as  psychology. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S. — Humanism,  intuitionism, 
and  objective  reality. 

Schinz,  A. — Anti-pragmatisme. 

Schinz,  A. — Rousseau  a  forerunner  of  prag- 
matism. 

Schinz,  A. — A  few  words  in  reply  to  Profes- 
sor Moore's  criticism  of  'Anti-pragma- 
tism'. 

Shackleford,  T.  M. — What  pragmatism  is, 
as  I  understand  it. 


Mind    17:104. 
Atlantic  101:657. 

Mind  17:370. 

Hib.  Jour.  6:903. 
Jour.   Phil.   5:617. 
Mind  17:368. 

Am.  Jour.  Theol.  12:231. 

Jour.  Phil.  5:256. 
Monist  18:142. 
Forum  41:70. 

Monist  19:136. 
Monist  19:85. 

Monist  19:319. 

Hib.  Jour.  7:218. 
Am.  Cath.  Q.  34:139. 

Bib.  Sac.  66:78. 
Jour.  Phil.  6:655. 

Jour.  Phil.  6:549 

Quarterly  Rev.  210:379. 
Hib.  Jour.  7:784. 

Hib.  Jour.  7:443. 


Jour.  Phil.  6:233. 

Jour.   Phil.   6:460,485,543,501. 
Jour.  Phil.  6:291. 

Catholic  World  90:341. 
Jour.  Phil.  6:378. 
Nation  88:456. 
Mind  18:377. 

Am.  Jour.  Theol.  13:477. 
Mind  18:125. 
Mind    18:400. 

Mind  18:570. 


Monist  19:481. 

Jour.  Phil.  6:434. 
Pop  Sci.  Mo.  75:571. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


53 


Taylor,  A.  E. — Review  of  James's  Pluralistic 

Universe. 
Tausch,   Edwin — William   James  the  prag- 

matist. 

Origin  of  pragmatism. 
Philosophy  in  the  open. 
Pragmatism  as  a  strangler  of  literature. 

1910.  Boodin  J.  E, — Pragmatic  realism. 
Carus,  Paul — Pragmatist  view  of  truth. 
Carus,  Paul— Truth. 

Cockrell,  T.  D.  A. — Is  pragmatism  prag- 
matic ? 

De  Laguna,  T. — Dogmatism  and  Evolution. 

Fite,  W.— O'Sullivan's  Old  Criticism  and 
New  Pragmatism. 

Gillespie,  C.  M. — The  truth  of  Protagoras. 

Jacoby,  Gunther — Der  Pragmatismus. 

Kallen,  H.  M. — James,  Bergson,  and  Mr. 
Pitkin. 

Lee,  V. — Two  pragmatisms. 

Lloyd,  A.  H. — Possible  idealism  of  a  plur- 
alist. 

Macintosh,  D.  C. — Pragmatic  element  in  the 
teaching  of  Paul. 

McGiffert,  A.  C.— The  pragmatism  of  Kant. 

Miller,  D.  S. — Some  of  the  tendencies  of  Pro- 
fessor James's  work. 

Moore,  A.  W. — Pragmatism  and  Its  Critics. 

Moore,  A.  W. — How  ideas  work. 

O'Sullivan,  J.  M. — Old  Criticism  and  New 
Pragmatism. 

Russell,  B. — Philosophical  Essays.  Chap- 
ters 4,  6. 

Reviews  of  James's  Meaning  of  Truth. 

Russell,  J.  E. — Review  of  James's  Meaning 
of  Truth. 

Schinz,  A. — Anti-pragmatism. 

Shackelford,  T.  M.— What  is  pragmatism  ? 

Sidgwick,  A. — The  Application  of  Logic. 

Stettheimer,  E. — Rowland's  Right  To  Be- 
lieve. 

Walker,  L.  J.— Theory  of  Knowledge:  Ab- 
solutism, Pragmatism,  and  Realism. 

1911.  Brown,  H.  C. — De  Laguna's  Dogmatism  and 

Evolution. 

Cockerell,  T.  D.  A.— Reality  and  truth. 

Eastman,  Max — Dewey's  How  We  Think. 

Fawcett,  E.  D. — A  note  on  pragmatism. 

Jacks,  L.  P. — William  James  and  his  mess- 
age. 

Kallen,  H.  M. — Boutroux's  William  James. 

Kallen,  H.  M. — Pragmatism  and  its  'prin- 
ciples'. 

More,  P.  E. — The  Pragmatism  of  William 
James. 

Patten,  S.  N. — Pragmatism  and  social  sci- 
ence. 


Mind  18:576. 

Monist  19:1. 
Nation  88:358. 
Bookman  29:661. 
Cur.  Lit.  46:637. 
Monist  20:602. 
Monist  20:139. 
Monist  20:481. 

Dial  48:422. 


Jour.  Phil.  7:499. 
Mind  19:470. 


Jour.  Phil.  7:353. 
No.  Am.  192:449. 

Am.  Jour.  Theol.  14:406. 

Am.  Jour.  Theol.  13:361. 
Jour.  Phil.  7:197. 

Jour.  Phil.  7:645. 
Jour.  Phil.  7:617. 


Nation  90:88. 
Hib.  Jour.  8:904. 
Ed.  Rev.  40:201. 

Jour.  Phil.  7:22. 
Sci.  Am.  S.  70:78. 

Jour.  Phil.  7:330. 


Jour.  Phil.  8:556. 
Pop.  Sci.  Mo.  78:371. 
Jour.  Phil.  8:244. 
Mind  20:399. 

Contemp.  Rev.  99:20. 
Jour.  Phil.  8:583. 

Jour.  Phil.  8:617. 


Jour.  Phil.  8:653. 


54  THE  PRAGMATIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH 

Pratt,   J.    B. — The   religious    philosophy   of 

William  James.  Hib.  Jour.  10:225. 

Riley,   I.   W. — Continental   critics    of   prag- 
matism. Jour.  Phil.  8:225,289. 
Russell,  J.  E. — Truth  as  value  and  the  value 

of  truth.  Mind  20: 538. 

Schiller,  F.   C.  S. — Article  'pragmatism'  in 

Encyclopedia  Brittanica. 
Schiller,  F.  C.  S. — Review  of  James's  Some 

Problems  of  Philosophy.  Mind  20:571. 

Turner.,    W. — Pragmatism:     what    does    it 

mean?  Cath.  World  94:178. 

Vibbert,  C.  B. — Moore's  Pragmatism  and  its 

Critics.  Jour.  Phil.  8:468. 

1912.  Berkeley,  H. — The  kernel  of  pragmatism.         Mind  21:84. 
Ceulemans,    J.    B. — Metaphysics    of    prag- 
matism. Am.  Cath.  Q.  37:310. 

Jacoby,  Gunther — Bergson,  pragmatism,  and 

Schopenhauer.  Monist  22:593. 

Kallen,  H.  M.— Royce's  William  James.  Jour.  Phil.  9:548. 

Lee,  Vernon — Vital  Lies.    v.  1,  part  1. 

Lee  Vernon — What  is  truth?  a  criticism  of 

pragmatism.  Yale  Rev.  n.  s.  1:600. 

Loewenberg,  J. — Vaihinger's  Die  Philosophic 

des  Als  Ob.  Jour.  Phil.  9:717. 

Macintosh,  D.  C. — Representational  prag- 
matism. Mind  21:167. 

Montague,  W.  P. — Review  of  James's  Some 

Problems  of  Philosophy.  Jour.  Phil.  9:22. 

Murray,  D.  L. — Pragmatism. 

Reviews    of    Moore's    Pragmatism    and    Its 

Critics.  Nation  92:13. 

Int  Jour.  Eth.  22:222. 

Riley,  I.  W. — Huizinga's  The  American  Phil- 
osophy Pragmatism.  Jour.  Phil.  9:248. 

Russell,  B. — Review  of  James's  Essays  in 

Radical  Empiricism.  Mind  21:571. 

Russell,  J.  E. — Bergson's  anti-intellectual- 
ism.  Jour.  Phil.  9:129. 

Schiller,  F  C.  S. — Formal  Logic,  A  Scientific 
and  Social  Problem. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S.— The  'working'  of  'truth'.    Mind  21:532. 

1913.  Alexander,  S.— Collective  willing  and  truth.    Mind  22:14,161. 
Boodin,  J.  E. — Pragmatic  realism. — The  five 

attributes.  Mind   22:509. 

Carr,  H  W.— Logic  and  life.  Mind  22:484. 

Carr,  H.  W.— The  Problem  of  Truth. 

Caldwell,  W. — Pragmatism  and  Idealism. 

Knox,  H.  V. — William  James  and  his  phil- 
osophy. Mind  22:231. 

Moore,  A.  W. — Pragmatism,  science,  and 
truth. 

Perry,  R.  B. — Realism  and  pragmatism.  Mind  22:544. 

Review  of  Vernon  Lee's  Vital  Lies.  Nation  96:414. 

Royce,  J. — Psychological  problems  empha- 
sized by  pragmatism.  Pop.  Sci.  Mo.  83:394. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S.— The  'working'  of  truths 

and  their  'criterion'.  Mind  22:532. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S. — Humanism. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


55 


Stebbing,  L.  S. — The  'working'  of  'truths'. 

Wright,   W.    K. — Practical    success    as    the 

criterion  of  truth. 
1914.  Knox,  H.  V.— Philosophy  of  William  James. 

Moore,  J  S. — Value  in  its  relation  to  mean- 
ing and  purpose. 

Ross,  G.  R.  T. — Aristotle  and  abstract  truth 
— A  reply  to  Mr.  Schiller. 

Sidgwick,  A. — Truth  and  working. 

Stebbing,    L.    S. — Pragmatism    and    French 
Voluntarism. 

Wilde,  N. — The  pragmatism  of  Pascal. 

Can   socialism   be   identified   with   pragma- 
tism? 


Mind  22:250. 
Phil.  Rev.  22:606. 


Jour.  Phil.  11:184. 

Mind  23:396. 
Mind  23:99. 


Phil.  Rev.  23:540. 
Cur.  Opinion  56:45. 


.    VITA. 

The  writer  was  born  in  1884  at  Pomeroy,  Ohio,  and  received  his 
earlier  education  in  the  country  schools  near  that  city.  His  college 
preparatory  work  was  done  in  the  high  school  of  Roswell,  New  Mexico, 
from  which  he  was  graduated  in  1906.  He  then  entered  immediately 
the  University  of  Wisconsin,  and  from  this  institution  received  the 
Bachelor's  degree  in  1910  and  the  Master's  degree  in  1911.  From  1911 
to  1914,  while  acting  as  fellow  or  as  assistant,  he  studied  in  the  graduate 
school  of  the  University  of  Illinois. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed 


LEE 

F(N) 

1     ^fc 

m         \MV  / 

ceo  9fi  1967 

" 

Str  £°  ISU 

Rpv—  - 

5>tF23'67-3PW 

LOAN  DEPT. 

^^'ei5         u-sggsg-i.  ' 

\-Jci\nort 
PAMPHLET  BINDER 

Syracuse,  N.   Y 
Stockton,  Calif 


